LITTLE JOURNEYS 

IN 

OLD NEW ENGLAND 




SIR HARRY FRANKLAND {See page 48) 







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By 

Mary Caroline Crawford 

^ulhor of •• The ColUge Girl of JImenca, " etc. 


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LC PAGE- &JCOMPANY 
BOSTON i8> PUBLISHERS 


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Little Journeys in Old New England 






U8RARY of CONGRESS 
OneCaoy hecdved 

^ ©o>jrn*i« tntry 
CLA^ O^ XXc.No. 
^^COP? a/ 



Copyright, igo2 
By L. C. Page & Company 

(incorporated) 



All rights reserved 



Sixth Impression, October, 1906 



COLONIAL PRESS 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H . Simonds ^^ Co. 

Boston, U.S.A. 



FOREWORD 

rHESE little sketches have been 
written to supply what seemed 
to the author a real need, — a 
volume which should give clearly, com- 
pactly, and with a fair degree of readable- 
ness, the stories connected with the surviv- 
ing old houses of jN'ew England. That de- 
lightful writer, Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, 
has in his many works on the historic 
mansions of colonial times, provided all 
necessary data for the serious student, and 
to him the deep indebtedness of this work 
is fully and frankly acknowledged. Yet 
there was no volume which gave entire the 
tales of chief interest to the majority of 

ill 



rOREWOED 



readers. It is, therefore, to such searchers 
after the romantic in 'New England's his- 
tory that the present book is offered. 

It but remains to mention with grati- 
tude the many kind friends far and near 
who have helped in the preparation of the 
material, and especially to thank Messrs. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of the 
works of Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfel- 
low, and Higginson, by permission of and 
special arrangement with whom the selec- 
tions of the authors named, are used ; the 
Macmillan Co., for permission to use the 
extracts from Lindsay Swift's " Brook 
Farm " ; G. P. Putnam's Sons for their 
kindness in allowing quotations from their 
work, "Historic Towns of New England" ; 
Small, Maynard & Co., for the use of the 
anecdote credited to their Beacon Biogra- 
phy of Samuel F. B. Morse ; Little, Brown 
& Co., for their marked courtesy in the 
iv 



rOEEWORD 



extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. 
Samuel T. Pickard, Whittier's literary ex- 
ecutor, for the new Whittier material here 
given. M. c. c. 

Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1902. 



" All houses wherein men have lived and died are 
haunted houses." Longfellow. 

" So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find 
out the truth of anything by history." 

Plutarch. 

«... Common as light is lovCj 
And its familiar voice wearies not ever." 

Shelley. 

" . . . / discern 
Infinite passion and the pain 
Of finite hearts that yearn." 

Browning. 

" '2Y5 an old tale and often told." 

Scott. 



VI 



CONTENTS 



Foreword iii 

The Heir of Swift's Vanessa 11 

The Maid of Marblehead 37 

An American-Born Baronet 59 

Molly Stark's Gentleman-Son 74 

A Soldier of Fortune 90 

The Message of the Lanterns 104 

Hancock's Dorothy Q. 117 
Baroness Riedesel and Her Tory 

Friends 130 
Doctor Church : First Traitor to the 

American Cause 147 
A Victim of Twq Revolutions 159 
The Woman Veteran of the Con- 
tinental Army 170 
The Redeemed Captive 190 
New England's First " Club Woman " 210 
In the Reign of the Witches 225 
Lady Wentworth of the Hall 241 
An Historic Tragedy 251 
Inventor Morse's Unfulfilled Ambi- 
tion 264 
Where the '' Brothers and Sisters " 
Met 279 

vii 



CONTENTS 



Page 

The Brook Farmers 293 

Margaret Fuller : Marchesa d'Ossoli 307 

The Old Maiise and Some of Its 

Mosses 324 

Salem's Chinese God 341 

The Well-Sweep of a Song 366 

Whittier's Lost Love 366 



viii 



LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS 



Page 
Sir Harry Frankland (^See j^age ^8) 

Frontispiece 

Whitehall, Newport, E. I. 31 
Koyall House, Medford, Mass. — 

Pepperell House, Kittery, Maine 66 
General Lee's Headquarters, Somer- 

ville, Mass. 94 
Christ Church — Paul Eevere House, 

Boston, Mass. 104 
Dorothy Q. House, Quincy, Mass. 123 
Eiedesel House, Cambriclp:*\ Mass. 145 
Swan House, Dorchester, Mass. 164 
Gannett House, Sharon, Mass. 188 
Williams House, Deerfield, Mass. 193 
Old Witch House, Salem, Mass. 225 
Governor Wentworth House, Ports- 
mouth, N. H. 246 
Fairbanks House, Dedham, Mass. 260 ' 
Brook Farm, West Eoxbury, Mass. 296 ' 
Old Manse, Concord, Mass. 324 
Whittier's Birthplace, East Haver- 
hill, Mass. 380 



LITTLE JOURNEYS 



IN 



OLD NEW ENGLAND 



THE HEIE OF SWIFT'S VANESSA 

Ik TOWHEEE in the annals of our 
/ \/ history is recorded an odder 
phase of curious fortune than that 
by which Bishop Berkeley, of Cloyne, was 
enabled early in the eighteenth century to 
sail o'erseas to Newport, Rhode Island, 
there to build (in 1Y29) the beautiful old 
place, Whitehall, which is still standing. 
Hundreds of interested visitors drive 
every summer to the old house, to take a 
cup of tea, to muse on the strange story 

11 



OLD NEW e:n^gland kooftrees 

with which the ancient dwelling is con- 
nected, and to pay the meed of respectful 
memory to the eminent philosopher who 
there lived and wrote. 

The poet Pope once assigned to this 
bishop " every virtue under heaven," and 
this high reputation a study of the man's 
character faithfully confirms. As a stu- 
dent at Dublin University, George Berke- 
ley won many friends, because of his 
handsome face and lovable nature, and 
many honours by reason of his brilliancy 
in mathematics. Later he became a fel- 
low of Trinity College, and made the ac- 
quaintance of Swift, Steele, and the other 
members of that brilliant Old World liter- 
ary circle, by all of whom he seems to 
have been sincerely beloved. 

A large part of Berkeley's early life 
was passed as a travelling tutor, but soon 
after Pope had introduced him to the 
12 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

Earl of Burlington, he was made dean 
of Derry, through the good offices of 
that gentleman, and of his friend, the Duke 
of Grafton, then Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
land. Berkeley, however, never cared for 
personal aggrandisement, and he had long 
been cherishing a project which he soon 
announced to his friends as a ^^ scheme for 
converting the savage Americans to Chris- 
tianity by a college to be erected in the 
Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles 
of Bermuda." 

In a letter from London to his life-long 
friend and patron. Lord Percival, then at 
Bath, we find Berkeley, under date of 
March, 1723, writing thus of the enter- 
prise which had gradually fired his imag- 
ination : " It is now about ten months 
since I have determined to spend the 
residue of my days in Bermuda, where I 
trust in Providence I may be the mean 

13 



OLD IsTEW El^GLAND EOOFTREES 

instrument of doing great good to man- 
kind. The reformation of manners among 
the English in our western plantations, 
and the propagation of the gospel among 
the American savages, are two points of 
high moment. The natural way of doing 
this is by founding a college or seminary 
in some convenient part of the West Indies, 
where the English youth of our plantations 
may be educated in such sort as to supply 
their churches with pastors of good morals 
and good learning — a thing (God knows) 
much wanted. In the same seminary a 
number of young American savages may 
also be educated until they have taken the 
degree of Master of Arts. And being by 
that time well instructed in the Christian 
religion, practical mathematics, and other 
liberal arts and sciences, and early imbued 
with public-spirited principles and inclina- 
tions, they may become the fittest instru- 
14 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

ments for spreading religion, morals, and 
civil life among their countrymen, who can 
entertain no suspicion or jealousy of men 
of their own blood and language, as they 
might do of English missionaries, who can 
never be well qualified for that work." 

Berkeley then goes on to describe the 
plans of education for American youths 
which he had conceived, gives his reasons 
for preferring the Bermudas as a site for 
the college, and presents a bright vision 
of an academic centre from which should 
radiate numerous beautiful influences that 
should make for Christian civilisation in 
America. Even the gift of the best dean- 
ery in England failed to divert him from 
thoughts of this Utopia. ^^ Derry,'' he 
wrote, " is said to be worth £1,500 per 
annum, but I do not consider it with a view 
to enriching myself. I shall be perfectly 



15 



OLD :n^ew EA^GLANI) kooftkees 

contented if it facilitates and recommends 
my scheme of Bermuda." 

But the thing which finally made it 
possible for Berkeley to come to America, 
the incident which is responsible for 
Whitehall's existence to-day in a grassy 
valley to the south of Honeyman's Hill, 
two miles back from the " second beach," 
at I^ewport, was the tragic ending of as 
sad and as romantic a story as is to be 
found anywhere in the literary life of 
England. 

Swift, as has been said, was one of the 
friends who was of great service to Berke- 
ley when he went up to London for the 
first time. The witty and impecunious 
dean had then been living in London for 
more than four years, in his " lodging 
in Berry Street," absorbed in the political 
intrigue of the last years of Queen Anne, 
and sending to Stella, in Dublin, the daily 
16 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

journal, which so faithfully preserves the 
incidents of those years. Under date of 
an April Sunday in 1713, we find in this 
journal these lines. Swift's first mention of 
our present hero: '^ I went to court to-day 
on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of 
our fellows at Trinity College. That Mr. 
Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a 
great philosopher, and I have mentioned 
him to all the ministers, and have given 
them some of his writings, and I will 
favour him as much as I can." 

In the natural course of things Berkeley 
soon heard much, though he saw scarcely 
anything, of Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her 
daughter, the latter the famous and un- 
happy " Vanessa," both of whom were set- 
tled at this time in Berry Street, near 
Swift, in a house where. Swift writes to 
Stella, " I loitered hot and lazy after my 
morning's work," and often dined " out 

17 



OLD KEW FA^GLAl^D ROOFTREES 

of mere listlessness/' keeping there ^' my 
best gown and per ri wig " when at Chelsea. 

Mrs. Vanhomrigh was the widow of a 
Dutch merchant, who had followed William 
the Third to Ireland, and there obtained 
places of profit, and her daughter, Esther, 
or Hester, as she is variously called, was 
a girl of eighteen when she first met Swift, 
and fell violently in love with him. This 
passion eventually proved the girl's perdi- 
tion, — and was, as we shall see, the cause 
of a will which enabled Dean Berkeley to 
carry out his dear and cherished scheme of 
coming to America. 

Swift's journal, frank about nearly 
everything else in the man's life, is signifi- 
cantly silent concerning Esther Vanhom- 
righ. And in truth there was little to be 
said to anybody, and nothing at all to be 
confided to Stella, in regard to this un- 
happy affair. That Swift was flattered to 
18 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND EOOFTEEES 

find this girl of eighteen, with beauty and 
accomplishment, caring so much for him, a 
man now forty-four, and bound by honour, 
if not by the Church, to Stella, one cannot 
doubt. At first, their relations seem to 
have been simply those of teacher and 
pupil, and this phase of the matter it is 
which is most particularly described in 
the famous poem, " Cadenus and Vanessa/^ 
written at Windsor in 1713, and first pub- 
lished after Vanessa's death. 

Human nature has perhaps never before 
or since presented the spectacle of a man 
of such transcendent powers as Swift in- 
volved in such a pitiable labyrinth of the 
affections as marked his whole life. Pride 
or ambition led him to postpone indefi- 
nitely his marriage with Stella, to whom 
he was early attached. Though he said 
he " loved her better than his life a thou- 
sand millions of times," he kept her 

19 



OLD :^rEW ENGLA^^D EOOFTEEES 

always hanging on in a state of hope de- 
ferred, injurious alike to her peace and 
her reputation. And because of Stella, he 
dared not afterward with manly sincerity 
admit his undoubted affection for Vanessa. 
For, if one may believe Doctor Johnson, 
he married Stella in 1716, — though he 
died without acknowledging this union, 
and the date given would indicate that the 
ceremony occurred while his devotion to 
his young pupil was at its height. 

Touching beyond expression is the story 
of Vanessa after she had gone to Ireland, 
as Stella had gone before, to be near the 
presence of Swift. Her life was one of 
deep seclusion, chequered only by the oc- 
casional visits of the man she adored, 
each of which she commemorated by 
planting with her own hand a laurel in 
the garden where they met. When all her 
devotion and her offerings had failed to 
20 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

impress him, she sent him remonstrances 
which reflect the agony of her mind : 

'^ The reason I write to you," she says, 
" is because I cannot tell it you should I 
see you. For when I begin to complain, 
then you are angry; and there is some- 
thing in your looks so awful, that it strikes 
me dumb. Oh! that you may have but 
so much regard for me left that this com- 
plaint may touch your soul with pity. I 
say as little as ever I can. Did you but 
know what I thought, I am sure it would 
move you to forgive me, and believe that I 
cannot help telling you this and live." 

Swift replies with the letter full of ex- 
cuses for not seeing her oftener, and ad- 
vises her to ^^ quit this scoundrel island." 
Yet he assures her in the same breath, 
" que jamais personne du monde a ete 
aimee, honoree, estim^e, ador^e, par votre 
ami que vous." 

21 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOETREES 

The tragedy continued to deepen as it 
approached the close. Eight years had 
Vanessa nursed in solitude the hopeless 
attachment. At length (in 1723) she wrote 
to Stella to ascertain the nature of the 
connection between her and Swift. The 
latter obtained the fatal letter, and rode 
instantly to Marley Abbey, the residence 
of Vanessa. " As he entered the apart- 
ment/' to quote the picturesque language 
Scott has used in recording the scene, '^ the 
sternness of his countenance, which was 
peculiarly formed to express the stronger 
passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa 
with such terror, that she could scarce ask 
whether he would not sit down. He an- 
swered by flinging a letter on the table; 
and instantly leaving the house, mounted 
his horse, and returned to Dublin. When 
Vanessa opened the packet, she found only 
her own letter to Stella. It was her death- 
22 



OLD NEW e:n^gland rooftkees 

warrant. She sunk at once under the 
disappointment of the delayed, yet cher- 
ished hopes which had so long sickened 
her heart, and beneath the unrestrained 
wrath of him for whose sake she had in- 
dulged them. How long she survived this 
last interview is uncertain, but the time 
does not seem to have exceeded a few 
weeks." 

Strength to revoke a will made in 
favour of Swift, and to sign another (dated 
May 1, 1723) which divided her estate 
between Bishop Berkeley and Judge Mar- 
shall, the poor young woman managed 
to summon from somewhere, however. 
Berkeley she knew very slightly, and Mar- 
shall scarcely better. But to them both she 
entrusted as executors her correspondence 
with Swift, and the poem, ^^ Cadenus and 
Vanessa,'' which she ordered to be pub- 
lished after her death. 

23 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

Doctor Johnson, in his '' Life of Swift," 
says of Vanessa's relation to the misan- 
thropic dean, '' She was a young woman 
fond of literature^ whom Decanus, the 
dean (called Cadenus by transposition of 
the letters), took pleasure in directing and 
interesting till, from being proud of his 
praise, she grew fond of his person. Swift 
was then about forty-seven, at the age 
when vanity is strongly excited by the 
amorous attention of a young woman." 

The poem with which these two lovers 
are always connected, was founded, ac- 
cording to the story, on an offer of mar- 
riage made by Miss Vanhomrigh to Doctor 
Swift. In it. Swift thus describes his 
situation : 

" Cadenus, common forms apart, 
In every scene had kept his heart ; 
Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ 
For pastime, or to show his wit. 
But books and time and state affairs 

24 



OLD NEW EXGLAJSTD EOOITREES 

Had spoiled his fashionable airs ; 
He now could praise, esteem, approve, 
But understood not what was love : 
His conduct might have made him styled 
A father and the nymph his child. 
That innocent delight he took 
To see the virgin mind her book, 
Was but the master's secret joy 
In school to hear the finest boy." 

That Swift was not always, however, so 
Platonic and fatherly in his expressions 
of affection for Vanessa, is shown in a 
'^ Poem to Love," found in Miss Vanhom- 
righ's desk after her death, in his hand- 
writing. One verse of this runs : 

" In all I wish how happy should I be, 

Thou grand deluder, were it not for thee. 

So weak thou art that fools thy power despise, 

And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise." 

After the poor girl's unhappy decease, 
Swift hid himself for two months in the 
south of Ireland. Stella was also shocked 
hy the occurrence, but when some one re- 

25 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

marked in her presence, apropos of the 
poem which had just appeared, that Va- 
nessa must have been a remarkable woman 
to inspire such verses, she observed with 
perfect truth that the dean was quite capa- 
ble of writing charmingly upon a broom- 
stick. 

Meanwhile Berkeley was informed of 
the odd stroke of luck by which he was to 
gain a small fortune. Characteristically, 
his thoughts turned now more than ever 
to his Bermuda scheme. " This provi- 
dential event," he wrote, " having made 
many things easy in my private affairs 
which were otherwise before, I have high 
hopes for Bermuda." 

Swift bore Berkeley absolutely no hard 
feeling on account of Vanessa's substitu- 
tion of his name in her will. He was quite 
as cordial as ever. One of the witty dean's 
most remarkable letters, addressed to Lord 
26 



OLD :N'EW englais^d rooftrees 

Carteret, at Bath, thus describes Berkeley's 
previous career and present mission : 

" Going to England very young, about 
thirteen years ago, the bearer of this became 
founder of a sect called the Immaterial- 
ists, by the force of a very curious book 
upon that subject. . . . He is an absolute 
philosopher with regard to money, titles, 
and power; and for three years past has 
been struck with a notion of founding a 
university at Bermudas by a charter from 
the Crown. . . . He showed me a little 
tract which he designs to publish, and 
there your Excellency will see his whole 
scheme of the life academico-philosophical, 
of a college founded for Indian scholars 
and missionaries, where he most exorbi- 
tantly proposes a whole hundred pounds 
a year for himself. . . . His heart will 
be broke if his deanery be not taken from 
him, and left to your Excellency's disposal, 

2T 



OLD NEW E^^GLA^D KOOFTREES 

I discouraged him by the coldness of Courts 
and Ministers, who will interpret all this 
as impossible and a vision; but nothing 
will do." 

The history of Berkeley's reception in 
London, when he came to urge his project, 
shows convincingly the magic of the man's 
presence and influence. His conquests 
spread far and fast. In a generation 
represented by Sir Robert Walpole, the 
scheme met with encouragement from all 
sorts of people, subscriptions soon reaching 
£5,000, and the list of promoters including 
even Sir Robert himself. Bermuda became 
the fashion among the wits of London, and 
Bolingbroke wrote to Swift that he would 
'^ gladly exchange Europe for its charms — 
only not in a missionary capacity." 

But Berkeley was not satisfied with mere 
subscriptions, and remembering what Lord 
Percival had said about the protection and 
28 



OLD :new ei^glaxd kooftkees 



aid of government he interceded with 
George the First, and obtained royal en- 
couragement to hope for a grant of £20,000 
to endow the Bermuda college. During 
the four years that followed, he lived in 
London, negotiating with brokers, and 
otherwise forwarding his enterprise of so- 
cial idealism. With Queen Caroline, con- 
sort of George the Second, he used to dis- 
pute two days a week concerning his 
favourite plan. 

At last his patience was rewarded. In 
September, 1Y28, we find him at Green- 
wich, ready to sail for Rhode Island. " To- 
morrow,'' he writes on September 3 to 
Lord Percival, " we sail down the river. 
Mr. James and Mr. Dalton go with me; 
so doth my wife, a daughter of the late 
Chief Justice Eorster, whom I mar- 
ried since I saw your lordship. I chose 
her for her qualities of mind, and her un- 

29 



OLD NEW EiNTGLAND KOOFTKEES 



affected inclination to books. She goes 
with great thankfulness, to live a plain 
farmer's life, and wear stuff of her own 
spinning. I have presented her with a 
spinning-wheel. Her fortune was £2,000 
originally, but travelling and exchange 
have reduced it to less than £1,500 English 
money. I have placed that, and about 
£600 of my own, in South Sea annuities." 

Thus in the forty-fourth year of his life, 
in deep devotion to his Ideal, and full of 
glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the 
West, Berkeley sailed for Khode Island in 
a " hired ship of two hundred and fifty 
tons." 

The New England Courier of that time 
gives this picture of his disembarkation 
at Newport : " Yesterday there arrived 
here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry. He 
is a gentleman of middle stature, of an 
agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He 
30 



OLD NEW ENGLAJS^D EOOFTREES 



was ushered into the town with a great 
number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved 
himself after a very complaisant manner." 

So favourably was Berkeley impressed 
by Newport that he wrote to Lord Perci- 
val : " I should not demur about situating 
our college here." And as it turned out, 
Newport was the place with which Berke- 
ley's scheme was to be connected in history. 
For it was there that he lived all three 
years of his stay, hopefully awaiting from 
England the favourable news that never 
came. 

In loyal remembrance of the palace of 
his monarchs, he named his spacious home 
in the sequestered valley Whitehall. Here 
he began domestic life, and became the 
father of a family. The neighbouring 
groves and the cliffs that skirt the coast 
offered shade and silence and solitude very 
soothing to his spirit, and one wonders not 

31 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOETKEES 

that he wrote, under the projecting rock 
that still bears his name, '^ The Minute 
Philosopher," one of his most noted works. 
The friends with whom he had crossed the 
ocean went to stay in Boston, but no solici- 
tations could withdraw him from the quiet 
of his island home. " After my long 
fatigue of business," he told Lord Perci- 
val, " this retirement is very agreeable to 
me ; and my wife loves a country life and 
books as well as to pass her time contin- 
ually and cheerfully without any other 
conversation than her husband and the 
dead." For the wife was a mystic and a 
quietist. 

But though Berkeley waited patiently 
for developments which should denote the 
realisation of his hopes, he waited always 
in vain. From the first he had so planned 
his enterprise that it was at the mercy of 
Sir Robert Walpole ; and at last came the 
82 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTEEES 

crisis of the project, with which the astute 
financier had never really sympathised. 
Early in 1730, Walpole threw off the 
mask. " If you put the question to me 
as a minister," he wrote Lord Percival, 
" I must and can assure you that the money 
shall most undoubtedly be paid — as soon 
as suits with public convenience; but if 
you ask me as a friend whether Dean 
Berkeley should continue in America, ex- 
pecting the payment of £200,000, I advise 
him by all means to return to Europe, and 
to give up his present expectations." 

When acquainted by his friend Percival 
with this frank statement, Berkeley ac- 
cepted the blow as a philosopher should. 
Brave and resolutely patient, he prepared 
for departure. His books he left as a gift 
to the library of Yale College, and his 
farm of Whitehall was made over to the 
same institution, to found three scholar- 

83 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

ships for the encouragement of Greek and 
Latin study. His visit was thus far from 
being barren of results. He supplied a 
decided stimulus to higher education in 
the colonies, in that he gave out counsel 
and help to the men already working 
for the cause of learning in the new coun- 
try. And he helped to form in Newport 
a philosophical reunion, the effects of 
which were long felt. 

In the autumn of 1731 he sailed from 
Boston for London, where he arrived in 
January of the next year. There a bishop- 
ric and twenty years of useful and honour- 
able labour awaited him. He died at Ox- 
ford, whence he had removed from his see 
at Cloyne, on Sunday evening, January 
14, 1753, while reading aloud to his family 
the burial service portion of Corinthians. 
He was buried in the Cathedral of Christ 
Church. 
34 



OLD ^EW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

Of the traces he left at Newport, there 
still remain, beside the house, a chair in 
which he was wont to write, a few books 
and papers, the organ presented bj him to 
Trinity Church, the big family portrait, 
by Smibert — and the little grave in 
Trinity churchyard, where, on the south 
side of the Kay monument, sleeps " Lucia 
Berkeley, obiit, the fifth of September, 
1731." Moreover the memory of the man's 
beautiful, unselfish life pervades this sec- 
tion of Rhode Island, and the story of his 
sweetness and patience under a keen and 
unexpected disappointment furnishes one 
of the most satisfying pages in our early 
history. 

The life of Berkeley is indeed greater 
than anything that he did, and one wonders 
not as one explores the young preacher's 
noble and endearing character that the dis- 
traught Vanessa fastened upon him, though 

35 



OLD :NEW EISTGLAOT) EOOFTREES 

she knew him only by reputation, as one 
who would make it his sacred duty to do all 
in his power to set her memory right in a 
censorious world. 



36 



THE MAID OF MAKBLEHEAD 

X^F all the romantic narratives which 
\^M enliven the pages of early colonial 
history, none appeals more directly 
to the interest and imagination of the 
lover of vrhat is picturesque than the story 
of Agnes Surriage, the Maid of Marble- 
head. The tale is so improbable, according 
to every-day standards, so in form with the 
truest sentiment, and so calculated to sat- 
isfy every exaction of literary art, that 
even the most credulous might be forgiven 
for ascribing it to the fancy of the ro- 
mancer rather than to the research of the 
historian. 

Yet when one remembers that the scene 

37 



OLD NEW EiN^GLAND EOOFTKEES 

of the first act of Agnes Surriage's life 
drama is laid in quaint old Marblehead, 
the tale itself instantly gains in credibility. 
For nothing would be too romantic to fit 
Marblehead. This town is fantastic in the 
extreme, builded, to quote Miss Alice 
Brown, who has written delightfully of 
Agnes and her life, " as if by a generation 
of autocratic landowners, each with a 
wilful bee in his bonnet." ^ Eor Marble- 
head is no misnomer, and the early settlers 
had to plant their houses and make their 
streets as best they could. As a matter of 
stem fact, every house in Marblehead had 
to be like the wise man's in the Bible: 
" built upon a rock." The dwellings them- 
selves were founded upon solid ledges, 
while the principal streets followed the nat- 
ural valleys between. The smaller divid- 

1 "Three Heroines of New England Romance." 
Little, Brown & Co. 

38 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

ing paths led each and every one of them 
to the impressive old Town House, and to 
that other comfortable centre of social in- 
terests, the Fountain Inn, with its near-by 
pump. This pump, by the bye, has a very 
real connection with the story of Agnes 
Surriage, for it was here, according to one 
legend, that Charles Henry Frankland 
first saw the maid who is the heroine of 
our story. 

The gallant Sir Harry was at this time 
(1742) collector of the port of Boston, 
a place to which he had been appointed 
shortly before, by virtue of his family's 
great influence at the court of George the 
Second. No more distinguished house than 
that of Frankland was indeed to be found 
in all England at this time. A lineal de- 
scendant of Oliver Cromwell, our hero was 
born in Bengal, May 10, 1716, during his 
father's residence abroad as governor of the 

39 



OLD NEW EN^GLAI^D ROOFTKEES 

East India Company's factory. The per- 
sonal attractiveness of Frankland's whole 
family was marked. It is even said that a 
lady of this house was sought in marriage 
by Charles the Second, in spite of the fact 
that a Capulet-Montague feud must ever 
have existed between the line of Cromwell 
and that of Charles Stuart, 

Young Harry, too, was clever as well 
as handsome. The eldest of his father's 
seven sons, he was educated as befitted the 
heir to the title and to the family estate 
at Thirkleby and Matter sea. He knew the 
French and Latin languages well, and, 
what is more to the point, used his mother 
tongue with grace and elegance. Botany 
and landscape-gardening were his chief 
amusements, while with the great litera- 
ture of the day he was as familiar as with 
the great men who made it. 

As early as 1738, when he was twenty- 
40 



OLD NEW ENGLAI^D KOOFTKEES 

two, he had come into possession of an 
ample fortune, but when opportunity of- 
fered to go to America with Shirley, his 
friend, he accepted the opening with avid- 
ity. Both young men, therefore, entered 
the same year (1741) on their offices, the 
one as Collector of the Port, and the other 
as Governor of the Colony. And both rep- 
resented socially the highest rank of that 
day in America. 

" A baronet," says Keverend Elias E'a- 
son, from whose admirable picture of Bos- 
ton in Frankland's time all writers must 
draw for reliable data concerning our hero, 
— "a baronet was then approached with 
greatest deference ; a coach and four, with 
an armorial bearing and liveried servants^ 
was a munition against indignity ; in those 
dignitaries who, in brocade vest, gold lace 
coat, broad ruffled sleeves, and small- 
clothes, who, with three-cornered hat and 

41 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

powdered wig, side-arms and silver shoe 
buckles, promenaded Queen Street and the 
Mall, spread themselves through the King's 
Chapel, or discussed the measures of the 
Pelhams, Walpole, and Pitt at the Rose 
and Crown, as much of aristocratic pride, 
as much of courtly consequence displayed 
itself as in the frequenters of Hyde Park 
or Regent Street." 

This, then, was the manner of man who, 
to transact some business connected with 
Marblehead's picturesque Fort Sewall, 
then just a-building, came riding down 
to the rock-bound coast on the day our 
story opens, and lost his heart at the Foun- 
tain Inn, where he had paused for a long 
draught of cooling ale. 

For lo ! scrubbing the tavern floor there 

knelt before him a beautiful child-girl of 

sixteen, with black curling hair, dark eyes, 

and a voice which proved to be of bird- 

42 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETREES 

like sweetness when the maiden, glancing 
up, gave her good-day to the gallant's 
greeting. The girFs feet were bare, and 
this so moved Erankland's compassion 
that he gently gave her a piece of gold with 
which to buy shoes and stockings, and rode 
thoughtfully away to conduct his business 
at the fort. 

Yet he did not forget that charming 
child just budding into winsome woman- 
hood whom he had seen performing with 
patience and grace the duties that fell to 
her lot as the poor daughter of some hon- 
est, hard-working fisherfolk of the town. 
When he happened again to be in Marble- 
head on business, he inquired at once for 
her, and then, seeing her feet still without 
shoes and stockings, asked a bit teasingly 
what she had done with the money he gave 
her. Quite frankly she replied, blushing 
the while, that the shoes and stockings were 

43 



OLD NEW ei^gla:ntd rooftrees 

bought, but that she kept them to wear to 
meeting. Soon after this the young col- 
lector went to search out Agnes's parents, 
Edward and Mary Surriage, from whom 
he succeeded in obtaining permission to 
remove their daughter to Boston to be edu- 
cated as his ward. 

When one reads in the old records the 
entries for Frankland's salary, and finds 
that they mount up to not more than £100 
sterling a year, one wonders that the young 
nobleman should have been so ready to 
take upon himself the expenses of a girl's 
elegant education. But it must be remem- 
bered that the gallant Harry had money 
in his own right, besides many perquisites 
of office, which made his income a really 
splendid one. Certainly he spared no ex- 
pense upon his ward. She was taught 
reading, writing, grammar, music, and em- 
broidery by the best tutors the town could 
44 



OLD :N'EW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

provide, and she grew daily, we are told, 
in beauty and maidenly charm. 

Yet in acquiring these gifts and graces 
she did not lose her childish sweetness 
and simplicity, nor the pious counsel of 
her mother, and the careful care of her 
Marblehead pastor. Thus several years 
passed by, years in which Agnes often vis- 
ited with her gentle guardian the residence 
in Roxbury of Governor Shirley and his 
gifted wife, as well as the stately Royall 
place out on the Medford road. 

The reader who is familiar with Mr, 
Bynner's story of Agnes Surriage will re- 
call how delightfully Mrs. Shirley, the 
wife of the governor, is introduced into his 
romance, and will recollect with pleasure 
his description of Agnes's ride to Roxbury 
in the collector's coach. This old mansion 
is now called the Governor Eustis House, 
and there are those still living who remem- 

45 



OLD ^E\Y ENGLAIS^D ROOFTREES 

ber when Madam Eustis lived there. This 
grand dame wore a majestic turban, and 
the tradition still lingers of madame's pet 
toad, decked on gala days with a blue rib- 
bon. I^ow the old house is sadly dilapi- 
dated; it is shorn of its piazzas, the sign 
" To Let " hangs often in the windows, 
and the cupola is adorned with well-filled 
clothes-lines. Partitions have cut the 
house into tenements; one runs through 
the hall, but the grand old staircase and 
the smaller one are still there, and the mar- 
ble floor, too, lends dignity to the back hall. 
A few of the carved balusters are missing, 
carried away by relic hunters. In this 
house, which was the residence of Gov- 
ernors Shirley and Eustis, Washington, 
Hamilton, Burr, Eranklin, and other nota- 
bles were entertained. The old place is 
now entirely surrounded by modern dwell- 
ing-houses, and the pilgrim who searches 
46 



OLD NEW ENGLAl^D KOOFTREES 

for it must leave the Mount Pleasant elec- 
tric car at Shirley Street. 

Yet, though Agnes as a maid was re- 
ceived by the most aristocratic people of 
Boston, the ladies of the leading families 
refused to countenance her when she 
became a fine young woman whom Sir 
Harry Frankland loved but cared not to 
marry. That her protector had not meant 
at first to wrong the girl he had befriended 
seems fairly certain, but many circum- 
stances, such as the death of Agnes's father 
and Frankland's own sudden elevation to 
the baronetcy, may be held to have con- 
spired to force them into the situation for 
which Agnes was to pay by many a day 
of tears and Sir Harry by many a night of 
bitter self-reproach. 

For Frankland was far from being a 
libertine. And that he sincerely loved the 
beautiful maid of Marblehead is certain, 

47 



OLD NEW EXGLAKD ROOFTKEES 

He has come down to us as one of the most 
knightly men of his time, a gentleman and 
a scholar, who was also a sincere follower 
of the Church of England and its teach- 
ings. Both in manner and person he is 
said to have greatly resembled the Earl of 
Chesterfield, and his diary as well as his 
portrait show him to have been at once 
sensitive and virile ; quite the man, indeed, 
very effectually to fascinate the low-bom 
beauty he had taught to love him. 

The indignation of the ladies in town 
toward Erankland and his ward made the 
baronet prefer at this stage of the story ru- 
ral Hopkinton to censorious Boston. Rev- 
erend Roger Price, known to us as rector 
of King's Chapel, had already land and a 
mission church in this village, and so, when 
Boston frowned too pointedly, Erankland 
purchased four hundred odd acres of him, 
and there built, in 1751, a commodious 
48 



OLD NEW E:^rGLAFD ROOFTREES 

mansion-house. The following year he and 
Agnes took up their abode on the place. 
Here Erankland passed his days, content- 
edly pursuing his horticultural fad, an- 
gling, hunting, overseeing his dozen slaves, 
and reading with his intelligent companion 
the latest works of Richardson, Steele, 
Swift, Addison, and Pope, sent over in 
big boxes from England. 

The country about Hopkinton was then 
as to-day a wonder of hill and valley, 
meadow and stream, while only a dozen 
miles or so from Erankland Hall was the 
famous Wayside Inn. That Sir Harry's 
Arcady never came to bore him was, per- 
haps, due to this last fact. Whenever 
guests were desired the men from Boston 
could easily ride out to the inn and canter 
over to the Hall, to enjoy the good wines 
and the bright talk the place afforded. 
Then the village rector was always to be 

49 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

counted on for companionship and breezy 
chat. It is significant that Sir Harry care- 
fully observed all the forms of his relig- 
ion, and treated Agnes with the respect 
due a wife, though he still continued to 
neglect the one duty which would have 
made her really happy. 

A lawsuit called the two to England 
in 1754. At Erankland's mother's home, 
where the eager son hastened to bring his 
beloved one, Agnes was once more sub- 
jected to martyrdom and social ostracism. 
As quickly as they could get away, there- 
fore, the young people journeyed to Lis- 
bon, a place conspicuous, even in that day 
of moral laxity, for its tolerance of the 
alliance lihre. Henry Fielding (who died 
in the town) has photographically de- 
scribed for all times its gay, sensuous life. 
Into this unwholesome atmosphere, quite 
new to her, though she was neither maid 
50 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

nor wife, it was that the sweet Agnes was 
thrust by Frankland. Very soon he was 
to perceive the mistake of this, as well as 
of several other phases of his selfishness. 

On All Saint's Day morning, 1755, 
when the whole populace, from beggar to 
priest, courtier to lackey, was making its 
way to church, the town of Lisbon was 
shaken to its foundations by an earthquake. 
The shock came about ten o'clock, just as 
the Misericordia of the mass was being 
sung in the crowded churches ; and Frank- 
land, who was riding with a lady on his 
way to the religious ceremony, was im- 
mersed with his companion in the ruins of 
some falling houses. The horses attached 
to their carriage were instantly killed, and 
the lady, in her terror and pain, bit through 
the sleeve of her escort's red broadcloth 
coat, tearing the flesh with her teeth. 
Frankland had some awful moments for 

51 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND KOOFTREES 

thought as he lay there pinned down by 
the fallen stones, and tortured by the pain 
in his arm. 

Meanwhile Agnes, waiting at home, was 
prey to most terrible anxiety. As soon as 
the surging streets would permit a foot 
passenger, she ran out with all the money 
' she could lay hands on, to search for her 
dear Sir Harry. By a lucky chance, she 
came to the very spot where he was lying 
white with pain, and by her offers of 
abundant reward and by gold, which she 
fairly showered on the men near by, she 
succeeded in extricating him from his fear- 
ful plight. Tenderly he was borne to a 
neighbouring house, and there, as soon as 
he could stand, a priest was summoned to 
tie the knot too long ignored. He had 
vowed, while pinned down by the weight 
of stone, to amend his life and atone to 
Agnes, if God in his mercy should see fit 
52 



OLD NEW EIS-GLAND ROOFTREES 

to deliver him, and he wasted not a moment 
in executing his pledge to Heaven. That 
his spirit had been effectually chastened, 
one reads between the lines of this entry 
in his diary, which may still be seen in the 
rooms of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society in Boston : ^' Hope my providential 
escape will have a lasting good effect upon 
my mind." 

In order to make his marriage doubly 
sure, he had the ceremony performed again 
by a clergyman of his own church on board 
the ship which he took at once for Eng- 
land. Then the newly married pair pro- 
ceeded once more to Frankland's home, and 
this time there were kisses instead of cold- 
ness for them both. Business in Lisbon 
soon called them back to the Continent, 
however, and it was from Belem that they 
sailed in April, 1750, for Boston, where 
both were warmly welcomed by their for- 
mer friends. 53 



OLD KEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

In the celebrated Clarke mansion, on 
Garden Court Street, which Sir Harry 
purchased October 5, 1756, for £1,200, our 
heroine now reigned queen. This house, 
three stories high, with inlaid floors, carved 
mantels, and stairs so broad and low that 
Sir Harrv could, and did, ride his pony up 
and down them, was the wonder of the 
time. It contained twenty-six rooms, and 
was in every respect a marvel of luxury. 
That Agnes did not forget her own people, 
nor scorn to receive them in her fine house, 
one is pleased to note. While here she 
practically supported, records show, her 
sister's children, and she welcomed always 
v/hen he came ashore from his voyages her 
brother Isaac, a poor though honest sea- 
man. 

Erankland's health was not, however, all 
that both might have wished, and the en- 
tries in the diaries deal, at this time, al- 
54 



OLD ^E\Y ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

most entirely with recipes and soothing 
drinks. In July, 1757, he sought, there- 
fore, the post of consul-general to Lisbon, 
where the climate seemed to him to suit 
his condition, and there, sobered city that 
it now was, the two again took up their 
residence. Only once more, in 1763, was 
Sir Harry to be in Boston. Then he came 
for a visit, staying for a space in Hopkin- 
ton, as well as in the city. The following 
year he returned to the old country, and 
in Bath, where he was drinking the waters, 
he died January 2, 1768, at the age of 
fifty-two. 

Agnes almost immediately came back to 
Boston, and, with her sister and her sister's 
children, took up her residence at Hopkin- 
ton. There she remained, living a peace- 
ful, happy life among her flowers, her 
friends, and her books, until the outbreak 
of the Revolution, when it seemed to her 

65 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

wise to go in to her town house. She 
entered Boston, defended bv a guard of 
six sturdy soldiers, and was cordially re- 
ceived by the officers in the beleaguered 
city, especially by Burgoyne, whom she 
had known in Lisbon. During the battle 
of Bunker Hill, she helped nurse wounded 
King's men, brought to her in her big 
dining-room on Garden Court Street. As 
an ardent Tory, however, she was persona 
non grata in the colony, and she soon found 
it convenient to sail for England, where, 
until 1782, she resided on the estate of the 
Frankland family. 

At this point, Agnes ceases in a way to 
be the proper heroine of our romance, for, 
contrary to the canons of love-story art, 
she married again, — Mr. John Drew, a 
rich banker, of Chichester, being the happy 
man. And at Chichester she died in one 
year's time. 
56 



OLD ^EW E^STGLAISTD ROOFTEEES 

The Hopkinton home fell, in the course 
of time, into the hands of the Reverend 
Mr. ]^ason, who was to be Frankland's 
biographer, and who, when the original 
house was destroyed by fire (January 3, 
1858), built a similar mansion on the same 
site. Here the Erankland relics were 
carefully preserved, — the fireplace, the 
family portrait (herewith reproduced); 
Sir Harry's silver knee buckles, and the 
famous broadcloth coat, from the sleeve of 
which the unfortunate lady had torn a 
piece with her teeth on the day of the Lis- 
bon disaster. This coat, we are told, was 
brought back to Hopkinton by Sir Harry, 
and hung in one of the remote chambers of 
the house, where each year, till his de- 
parture for the last time from the pleasant 
village, he was wont to pass the anniver^ 
sary of the earthquake in fasting, humilia- 
tion, and prayer. The coat, and all the 

67 



OLD :N^EW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

other relics, were lost in April, 1902, when, 
for the second time, Erankland Hall was 
razed by fire. 

The ancient Fountain Inn, with its 
" flapping sign," and the " spreading elm 
below," long since disappeared, and its 
well, years ago filled up, was only acci- 
dentally discovered at a comparatively 
recent date, when some workmen were dig- 
ging a post hole. It was then restored as 
an interesting landmark. This inn was 
a favourite resort, legends tell us, for 
jovial sea captains as well as for the gentry 
of the town. There are even traditions that 
pirates bold and smugglers sly at times 
found shelter beneath its sloping roof. 
Yet none of the many stories with which 
its ruins are connected compares in interest 
and charm to the absolutely true one given 
us by history of Fair Agnes, the Maid of 
Marblehead. 
58 



AX AMEKICAN - BOKN BARONET 

X^T^E of the most picturesque houses 
f^f in all Middlesex County is the 
Eoyall house at Med ford, a place 
to which Sir Harry Frankland and his 
lady used often to resort. Few of the great 
names in colonial history are lacking, in- 
deed, in the list of guests who were here 
entertained in the brave days of old. 

The house stands on the left-hand side 
of the old Boston Road as you approach 
Medford, and to-day attracts the admira- 
tion of electric car travellers just as a 
century and a half ago it was the focus 
for all stage passenger's eyes. Externally 
the building presents three stories, the 

59 



OLD :new England rooftrees 

upper tier of windows being, as is usual 
in houses of even a much later date, smaller 
than those underneath. The house is of 
brick, but is on three sides entirely 
sheathed in wood, while the south end 
stands exposed. Like several of the houses 
we are noting, it seems to turn its back on 
the high road. I am, however, inclined 
to a belief that the Royall house set the 
fashion in this matter, for Isaac, the 
Indian nabob, was just the man to assume 
an attitude of fine indifference to the world 
outside his gates. When in 1837, he 
came, a successful Antigua merchant, to 
establish his seat here in old Charlestown, 
and to rule on his large estate, sole mon- 
arch of twenty-seven slaves, he probably 
felt quite indifferent, if not superior, to 
strangers and casual passers-by. 

His petition of December, 1737, in re- 



60 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOETREES 

gard to the " chattels " in his train, ad- 
dressed to the General Court, reads : 

" Petition of Isaac Royall, late of An- 
tigua, now of Charlestown, in the county 
of Middlesex, that he removed from An- 
tigua and brought with him among other 
things and chattels a parcel of negroes, 
designed for his own use, and not any of 
them for merchandise. He prays that he 
may not be taxed with impost." 

The brick quarters which the slaves oc- 
cupied are situated on the south side of 
the mansion, and front upon the court- 
yard, one side of which they enclose. These 
may be seen on the extreme right of the 
picture, and will remind the reader who 
is familiar with Washington's home at 
Mount Vernon of the quaint little stone 
buildings in which the Father of his 
Country was wont to house his slaves. 
The slave buildings in Medford have re- 

6J 



OLD KEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

mained practically unchanged, and accord- 
ing to good authority are the last visible 
relics of slavery in New England. 

The Royall estate offered a fine example 
of the old-fashioned garden. Fruit trees 
and shrubbery, pungent box bordering 
trim gravel paths, and a wealth of sweet- 
scented roses and geraniums were here to 
be found. Even to-day the trees, the ruins 
of the flower-beds, and the relics of mag- 
nificent vines, are imposing as one walks 
from the street gate seventy paces back to 
the house-door. 

The carriage visitor — and in the old 
days all the Royall guests came under this 
head — either alighted by the front en- 
trance or passed by the broad drive under 
the shade of the fine old elms around into 
the courtyard paved with small white peb- 
bles. The drivewny has now become a side 
street, and what was once an enclosed gar- 
62 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

den of half an acre or more, with walks, 
fruit, and a summer-house at the farther 
extremity, is now the site of modern dwel- 
lings. 

This summer-house, long the favour- 
ite resort of the family and their guests, 
was a veritable curiosity in its way. Placed 
upon an artificial mound with two terraces, 
and reached by broad flights of red sand- 
stone steps, it was architecturally a model 
of its kind. Hither, to pay their court to the 
daughters of the house, used to come George 
Erving and the young Sir William Pep- 
perell, and if the dilapidated walls (now 
taken down, but still carefully preserved) 
could speak, they might tell of many an 
historic love tryst. The little house is 
octagonal in form, and on its bell-shaped 
roof, surmounted by a cupola, there poises 
what was originally a figure of Mercury. 
At present, however, the statue, bereft of 

63 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

both wings and arms, cannot be said 
greatly to resemble the dashing god. 

The exterior of the summer-house is 
highly ornamented with Ionic pilasters, 
and taken as a whole is quaintly ruinous. 
It is interesting to discover that it was 
utility that led to the elevation of the 
mound, within which was an ice-house! 
And to get at the ice the slaves went 
through a trap-door in the floor of this 
Greek structure ! 

Isaac Royall, the builder of the fine old 
mansion, did not long live to enjoy his 
noble estate, but he was succeeded by a 
second Isaac, who, though a " colonel," was 
altogether inclined to take more care for 
his patrimony than for his king. When the 
Eevolution began. Colonel Royall fell upon 
evil times. Appointed a councillor by 
mandamus, he declined serving " from 
timidity," as Gage says to Lord Dart- 
64 



OLD IS^EW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

mouth. Roy all's own account of his move- 
ments after the beginning of " these trou- 
bles," is such as to confirm the governor's 
opinion. 

He had prepared, it seems, to take pas- 
sage for the West Indies, intending to em- 
bark from Salem for Antigua, but having 
gone into Boston the Sunday previous to 
the battle of Lexington, and remained there 
until that affair occurred, he was by the 
course of events shut up in the town. He 
sailed for Halifax very soon, still intend- 
ing, as he says, to go to Antigua, but on 
the arrival of his son-in-law, George Er- 
ving, and his daughter, with the troops from 
Boston, he was by them persuaded to sail 
for England, whither his other son-in-law, 
Sir William Pepperell (grandson of the 
hero of Louisburg), had preceded him. It 
is with this young Sir William Pepperell 
that our story particularly deals. 

65 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOETREES 

The first Sir William had been what is 
called a ^' self-made man," and had raised 
himself from the ranks of the soldiery 
through native genius backed by strength of 
will. His father is first noticed in the an- 
nals of the Isles of Shoals. The mansion 
now seen in Kittery Point was built, in- 
deed, partly by this oldest Pepperell known 
to us, and partly by his more eminent son. 
The building was once much more extensive 
than it now appears, having been some 
years ago shortened at either end. Until the 
death of the elder Pepperell, in 1734, the 
house was occupied by his own and his 
son's families. The lawn in front reached 
to the sea, and an avenue a quarter of a 
mile in length, bordered by fine old trees, 
led to the neighbouring house of Colonel 
Sparhawk, east of the village church. The 
first Sir William, by his will, made the 
son of his daughter Elizabeth and of Colo- 
66 




ROYALL HOUSE, MEDFORD, MASS. 




PEPPERELL HOUSE, KITTERY, MAINE 



OLD NEW e:n^gland eooftrees 

nel Sparhawk, his residuary legatee, re- 
quiring him at the same time to relinquish 
the name of Sparhawk for that of Pep- 
erell. Thus it was that the baronetcy, 
extinct with the death of the hero of Louis- 
burg, was revived by the king, in 1774, 
for the benefit of this grandson. 

In the Essex Institute at Salem, is pre- 
served a two-thirds length picture of the 
first Sir William Pepperell, painted in 
1751 by Smibert, when the baronet was in 
London. Of this picture, Hawthorne once 
wrote the humourous description which fol- 
lows : " Sir William Pepperell, in coat, 
waistcoat and breeches, all of scarlet broad- 
cloth, is in the cabinet of the Society ; he 
holds a general's truncheon in his right 
hand, and points his left toward the army 
of E'ew Englanders before the walls of 
Louisburg. A bomb is represented as f al- 



67 



OLD N^EW Ej^GLAIs^D ROOFTEEES 



ling through the air — it has certainly 
been a long time in its descent." 

The yonng William Pepperell was grad- 
uated from Cambridge in 1766, and the 
next year married the beautiful Elizabeth 
Royall. In 1774 he was chosen a member 
of the governor's council. But when this 
council was reorganised under the act of 
Parliament, he fell into disgrace because 
of his loyalty to the king. On ISTovember 
16, 1774, the people of his own county 
(York), passed at Wells a resolution in 
which he was declared to have " forfeited 
the confidence and friendship of all true 
friends of American liberty, and ought to 
be detested by all good men.'' 

Thus denounced, the baronet retired to 
Boston, and sailed, shortly before his 
father-in-law's departure, for England. His 
beautiful lady, o-^g is saddened to learn, 
died of smallpox ere the vessel had been 
68 



OLD ISTEW EISTGLAI^D ROOFTKEES 

many days out, and was buried at Halifax. 
In England, Sir William was allowed £500 
per annum by the British government, and 
was treated with much deference. He was 
the good friend of all refugees from Amer- 
ica, and entertained hospitably at his 
pleasant home. His private life was irre- 
proachable, and he died in Portman 
Square, London, in December, 1810, at the 
age of seventy. His vast possessions and 
landed estate in Maine were confiscated, 
except for the widow's dower enjoyed by 
Lady Mary, relict of the hero of Louis- 
burg, and her daughter, Mrs. Sparhawk. 
Colonel Royall, though he acted not un- 
like his son-in-law. Sir William, has, be- 
cause of his vacillation, far less of our 
respect than the younger man in the mat- 
ter of his refusal to cast in his lot with 
that of the Revolution. In 1778 he was 
publicly proscribed and formally banished 

69 



OLD IS^EW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

from Massachusetts. He thereupon took 
up his abode in Kensington, Middlesex, 
and from this place, in 1789, he begged 
earnestly to be allowed to return '' home '' 
to Medford, declaring he was '' ever a good 
friend of the Province," and expressing the 
wish to marry again in his own country, 
'' where, having already had one good wife, 
he was in hopes to get another, and in some 
degree repair his loss." Llis prayer was, 
however, refused, and he died of smallpox 
in England, October, 1781. By his will, 
Harvard College was given a tract of land 
in Worcester County, for the foundation of 
a professorship, which still bears his name. 
It is not, however, to be supposed that in 
war time so fine a place as the Royall 
mansion should have been left unoccupied. 
When the yeomen began pouring into the 
environs of Boston, encircling it with a 
belt of steel, the New Hampshire levies 
70 



OLD NEW e:n^gland roofteees 

pitched their tents in Medford. They 
found the Royall mansion in the occupancy 
of Madam Royall and her accomplished 
daughters, who willingly received Colonel 
John Stark into the house as a safeguard 
against insult, or any invasion of the estate 
the soldiers might attempt. A few rooms 
were accordingly set apart for the use of 
the bluff old ranger, and he, on his part, 
treated the family of the deserter with con- 
siderable respect and courtesy. It is odd 
to think that while the stately Royalls 
were living in one part of this house, 
General Stark and his plucky wife, Molly, 
occupied quarters under the same roof. 

The second American general to be at- 
tracted by the luxury of the Royall man- 
sion was that General Lee whose history 
furnishes material for a separate chapter. 
General Lee it was to whom the house's 
echoing corridors suggested the name, Hob- 

71 



OLD NEW E:NrGLAND EOOFTEEES 

goblin Hall. So far as known, however, 
no inhabitant of the Royall house has ever 
been disturbed by strange visions or fright- 
ful dreams. After Lee, by order of Wash- 
ington, removed to a house situated nearer 
his command. General Sullivan, attracted, 
no doubt, by the superior comfort of the 
old country-seat, laid himself open to sim- 
ilar correction by his chief. In these two 
cases it will be seen Washington enforced 
his ov^TQ maxim that a general should sleep 
among his troops. 

In 1810, the Royall mansion came into 
the possession of Jacob Tidd, in whose 
family it remained half a century, until 
it had almost lost its identity with the 
timid old colonel and his kin. As " Mrs. 
Tidd's house " it was long known in Med- 
ford. The place was subsequently owned 
by George L. Barr, and by George C. 
I^Tichols, from whose hands it passed to that 
72 



OLD NEW El^GLAND KOOFTKEES 

of Mr. Geer, the present owner. To be 
sure, it has sadly fallen from its high 
estate, but it still remains one of the most 
interesting and romantic houses in all 'New 
England, and when, as happens once or 
twice a year, the charming ladies of the 
local patriotic society powder their hair, 
don their great-grandmother's wedding 
gowns and entertain in the fine old rooms, 
it requires only a slight gift of fancy to 
see Sir William Peppereli's lovely bride 
one among the gay throng of fair women. 



78 



MOLLY STARK'S GENTLEMAltT- 
SON 

X^F the quaint ancestral homes still 
\Jf standing in the old Granite State, 
none is more picturesque or more 
interesting from the historical view-point 
than the Stark house in the little town of 
Dunbarton, a place about ^n^ miles' drive 
out from Concord, over one of those charm- 
ing country roads, which properly make 
New Hampshire the summer and autumn 
Mecca of those who have been ^^ long in 
populous city pent." Rather oddly, this 
house has, for all its great wealth of his- 
torical interest, been little known to the 
general public. The Starks are a conserv- 
74 



OLD KEW EXGLAA^I) KOOFTREES 

ative, as well as an old family, and they 
have never seen fit to make of their 
home a public show-house. Yet those who 
are privileged to visit Dunbarton and its 
chief boast, this famous house, always re- 
member the experience as a particu- 
larly interesting one. Seldom, indeed, can 
one find in these days a house like this, 
which, for more than one hundred years, 
has been occupied by the family for whom 
it was built, and through all the changes 
and chances of temporal affairs has pre- 
served the characteristics of revolutionary 
times. 

Originally Dunbarton was Starkstown. 
An ancestor of this family, Archibald 
Stark, was one of the original proprietors, 
owning many hundred acres, not a few of 
which are still in the Starks' possession. 
Just when and by whom the place received 
the name of the old Scottish town and royal 

75 



OLD ISTEW EXGLAKD EOOFTEEES 

castle on the Clyde, no historian seems 
able to state with definiteness, but that the 
present Dunbarton represents only a small 
part of the original triangular township, 
all are agreed. Of the big landowner, 
Archibald Stark, the General John Stark 
of our Revolution was a son. 

Another of the original proprietors of 
Dunbarton was a certain Captain Caleb 
Page, whose name still clings to a rural 
neighbourhood of the township, a cross- 
roads section pointed out to visitors as 
Page's Corner. And it was to Elizabeth 
Page, the bright and capable daughter of 
his father's old friend and neighbour, that 
the doughty John Stark was married in 
August, 1758, while at home on a furlough. 
The son of this marriage was called Caleb> 
after his maternal grandfather, and he it 
was who built the imposing old mansion 
of our story. 
76 



OLD :N'EW E^GLAISTD ROOFTEEES 

Caleb Stark was a very remarkable man. 
Born at Dunbarton, December 3, 1759, he 
was present while only a lad at the battle 
of Bunker Hill, standing side by side with 
some of the veteran rangers of the Erench 
war, near the rail fence, which extended 
from the redoubt to the beach of the Mystic 
River. In order to be at this scene of con- 
flict, the boy had left home secretly some 
days before, mounted on his own horse, 
and armed only with a musket. After a 
long, hard journey, he managed to reach 
the Royall house in Medford, which was 
his father's headquarters at the time, the 
very night before the great battle. And 
the general, though annoyed at his son's 
manner of coming, recognised that the lad 
had done only what a Stark must do at 
such a time, and permitted him to take 
part in the next day's fight. 

After that, there followed for Caleb a 

77 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND EOOFTREES 

time of great social opportunity, which, 
transformed the clever, but unpolished 
'New Hampshire boy into as fine a young 
gentleman as was to be found in the 
whole country. The Royall house, it 
will be remembered, was presided over in 
the troublous war times by the beautiful 
ladies of the family, than whom no more 
cultured and distinguished women were 
anywhere to be met. And these, though 
Tory to the backbone, were disposed to 
be very kind and gracious to the brave 
boy whom the accident of war had made 
their guest. 

So it came about that even before he 
reached manhood's estate, Caleb Stark had 
acquired the grace and polish of Europe. 
E'er was the lad merely a carpet knight. 
So ably did he serve his father that he was 
made the elder soldier's aid-de-camp, when 
the father was made a brigadier-general, 
78 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

and by the time the war closed, was himself 
Major Stark, though scarcely twenty-four 
years old. 

Soon after peace was declared, the young 
major came into his Dunbarton patrimony, 
and in 1784, in a very pleasant spot in the 
midst of his estate, and facing the broad 
highway leading from Dunbarton to 
Weare, he began to build his now famous 
house. It was finished the next year, and 
in 1787, the young man, having been 
elected town treasurer of Dunbarton, re- 
solved to settle down in his new home, 
and brought there as his wife, Miss Sarah 
McKinstrey, a daughter of Doctor William 
McKinstrey, formerly of Taunton, Mas- 
sachusetts, a beautiful and cultivated girl, 
just twenty years old. 

It is interesting in this connection to 
note that all the women of the Stark family 
have been beauties, and that they have, 

79 



OLD NEW E]SrGLA:NTD ROOFTEEES 

too, been sweet and charming in disposi- 
tion, as well as in face. The old mansion 
on the Weare road has been the home dur- 
ing its one hundred and ten years of life 
of several women who would have adorned, 
both by reason of their personal and intel- 
lectual charms, any position in our land. 
This being true, it is not odd that the coun- 
try folk speak of the Stark family with 
deepest reverence. 

Beside building the family homestead, 
Caleb Stark did two other things which 
serve to make him distinguished even in 
a family where all were great. He enter- 
tained Lafayette, and he accumulated the 
family fortune. Both these things were 
accomplished at Pembroke, where the 
major early established some successful 
cotton mills. The date of his entertain- 
ment of Lafayette was, of course, 1825, 
the year when the marquis, after laying the 
80 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

corner-stone of our monument on Bunker 
Hill, made his triumphal tour through 
New Hampshire. 

The bed upon which the great French- 
man slept during his visit to the Starks 
is still carefully preserved;, and those 
guests who have had the privilege of being 
entertained by the present owners of the 
house can bear testimony to the fact that 
the couch is an extremely comfortable one. 
The room in which this bed is the most 
prominent article of furniture bears the 
name of the Lafayette room, and is in 
every particular furnished after the man- 
ner of a sleeping apartment of one hundred 
years ago. The curtains of the high bed- 
stead, the quaint toilet-table, the bedside 
table with its brass candlestick, and the 
pictures and the ornaments are all in har- 
mony. Nowhere has a discordant modern 
note been struck. The same thing is true 

81 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

of all the other apartments in the house. 
The Starks have one and all displayed 
great taste and decided skill in preserving 
the long-ago tone that makes the place what 
it is. The second Caleb, who inherited the 
estate in 1838, when his father, the bril- 
liant major, died, was a Harvard graduate, 
and writer of repute, being the author of 
a valuable memoir of his father and grand- 
father. He collected, even more than they 
had done, family relics of interest. When 
he died in 1865, his two sisters, Harriett 
and Charlotte, succeeded him in the pos- 
session of the estate. 

Only comparatively recently has this 
latter sister died, and the place come into 
the hands of its present owner^ Mr. Charles 
F. Morris Stark, an heir who has the tra- 
ditions of the Morris family to add to 
those of the Starks, being on his mother's 
side a lineal descendant of Robert Morris, 
82 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETREES 

the great financier of the Revolution. The 
present Mrs. Stark is the representative of 
still another noted New Hampshire family, 
being the granddaughter of General John 
McNeil, a famous soldier of the Granite 
State. 

Few, indeed, are the homes in America 
which contain so much which, while of 
intimate interest to the family, is as well 
of wide historical importance. Though a 
home, the house has the value of a museum. 
The portrait of Major Stark, which hangs 
in the parlour at the right of the square en- 
trance-hall, was painted by Professor Sam- 
uel Finley Breese Morse, the discoverer of 
the electric telegraph, a man who wished to 
come down to posterity as an artist, but is 
now remembered by us only as an inventor. 

This picture is an admirable presents- 
tion of its original. The gallant major 
looks down upon us with a person rather 

83 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTEEES 

above the medium in height, of a slight 
but muscular frame, with the short waist- 
coat, the high collar, and the close, narrow 
shoulders of the gentleman's costume of 
1830. The carriage of the head is noble, 
and the strong features, the deep-set, keen, 
blue eyes, and the prominent forehead, 
speak of courage, intelligence, and cool 
self-possession. 

Beside this noteworthy portrait hangs 
a beautiful picture of the first mistress of 
this house, the Mrs. Stark who, as a girl, 
was Miss Sarah McKinstrey. Her portrait 
shows her to have been a fine example of the 
blonde type of beauty. The splendid coils 
of her hair are very lustrous, and the dark 
hazel eyes look out from the frame with the 
charm and dignity of a St. Cecilia. Her 
costume, too, is singularly appropriate and 
becoming, azure silk with great puffs of 



84 



OLD NEW EN'GLAN^D KOOFTREES 

lace around the white arms and queenly 
throat. The waist, girdled under the arm- 
pits, and the long-wristed mits stamp the 
date 1815-21. 

The portrait of General Stark, which 
was painted by Miss Hannah Crownin- 
shield, is said not to look so much like the 
doughty soldier as does the Morse picture 
of his son, but Gilbert Stuart's Miss Char- 
lotte Stark, recently deceased, shows the 
last daughter of the family to have fairly 
sustained in her youth the reputation for 
beauty which goes with the Stark women. 

Beside the portraits, there are in the 
house many other choice and valuable 
antiques. Among these the woman visitor 
notices with particular interest the fan 
that was once the property of Lady Pep- 
perell, who was a daughter, it will be re- 
membered, of the Eoyall family, who were 



85 



OLD NEW EXGLAN^D ROOFTREES 

so kind to Major Caleb Stark in his youth. 
And to the man who loves historical things, 
the cane presented to Greneral Stark when 
he was a major, for valiant conduct in de- 
fence of Fort William Henry, will be of 
especial interest. This cane is made from 
the bone of a whale and is headend with 
ivory. On the mantelpiece stands another 
very interesting souvenir, a bronze statu- 
ette of IN^apoleon I., which Lafayette 
brought with him from France and pre- 
sented to Major Stark. 

Apropos of this there is an amusing 
story. The major was a great admirer of 
the distinguished Bonaparte, and made a 
collection of Napoleonic busts and pictures, 
all of which, together with the numerous 
other effects of the Stark place, had to be 
appraised at his death. As it happened, 
the appraiser was a countryman of limited 



86 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

intelligence, and, when he was told to put 
down " twelve Bonapartes," recorded 
" twelve pony carts," and it was thus that 
the item appeared on the legal paper. 

The house itself is a not unworthy imi- 
tation of an English manor-house, with its 
aspect of old-time grandeur and pictur- 
esque repose. It is of wood, two and a half 
stories high, with twelve dormer windows, 
a gambrel roof, and a large two-story L. 
In front there are two rows of tall and 
stately elms, and the trim little garden is 
enclosed by a painted iron fence. On 
either side of the spacious hall, which ex- 
tends through the middle of the house, 
are to be found handsome trophies of the 
chase, collected by the present master of 
the place, who is a keen sportsman. 

A gorgeous carpet, which dates back 
fifty years, having been laid in the days 
of the beautiful Sarah, supplies the one 

87 



OLD NEW E:^rGLA]S^D EOOFTKEES 

bit of colour in the parlour^ while in the 
dining-room the rich silver and handsome 
mahogany testify to the old-time glories 
of the place. Of manuscripts which are 
simply priceless, the house contains not a 
few; one, over the quaint wine-cooler in 
the dining-room, acknowledging, in George 
Washington's own hand, courtesies ex- 
tended to him and to his lady by a member 
of the Morris family, being especially in- 
teresting. Up-stairs, in the simlit hall, 
among other treasures, more elegant but 
not more interesting, hangs a sunbonnet 
once worn by Molly Stark herself. 

'Not far off down the country road is 
perhaps the most beautiful and attractive 
spot in the whole town, the old family 
burying-ground of the Starks, in which are 
interred all the deceased members of this 
remarkable family, from the Revolutionary 
Major Caleb and his wife down. Here, 
88 



OLD N^EW ENGLAND EOOETKEES 



with grim, towering Kearsarge standing 
ever like a sentinel, rests under the yew- 
trees the dust of this great family's hon- 
oured dead. 



89 



A SOLDIEE OF FORTUNE 

"^^■^HE only time I ever heard Wash- 
m ington swear/' Lafayette once re- 

marked, " was when he called 
General Charles Lee a ^ damned poltroon,' 
after the arrest of that officer for treason- 
able conduct." Nor was Washington the 
only person of self-restraint and good man- 
ners whose temper and angry passions 
were roused by this same erratic General 
Lee. 

Lee was an Englishman, born in 
Cheshire in 1731. He entered the British 
army at the age of eleven years, was in 
Braddock's expedition, and was wounded at 
Ticonderoga in 1Y58. He also served for 
90 



OLD T^EW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

a time in Portugal, but certain infelicities 
of temper hindered his advancement, and 
he never rose higher in the British service 
than a half-pay major. As a " soldier of 
fortune " he was vastly more successful. 
In all the pages of American history, in- 
deed, it would be difficult to find anybody 
whose career was more interestingly and 
picturesquely checkered than was his. 

Lee's purpose in coming to America has 
never been fully explained. There are 
concerning this, as every other step of his 
career, two diametrically opposed opinions. 
The American historians have for the most 
agreed in thinking him traitorous and self- 
seeking, but for my own part I find little 
to justify this belief, for I have no diffi- 
culty whatever in accounting for his 
soldierly vagaries on the score of his 
temperament, and the peculiar conditions 
of his early life. A man who, while still 

91 



OLD iTEW e:nglaitd eoofteees 

a youth, was adopted by the Mohawk In- 
dians, — who bestowed upon him the sig- 
nificant name of Boiling Water, — who 
was at one time aid-de-camp and intimate 
friend of the King of Poland, who ren- 
dered good service in the Russian war 
against the Turks, — all before interesting 
himself at all in the cause of American 
freedom, — could scarcely be expected to 
be as simple in his us-ward emotions as an 
Israel Putnam or a General John Stark 
might be. 

General Lee arrived in 'New York from 
London, on !N"ovember 10, 1773, his 
avowed object in seeking the colonies at 
such a troublous time being to investigate 
the justice of the American cause. He 
travelled all over the country in pursuance 
of facts concerning the fermenting feeling 
against England, but he was soon able to 
enroll himself unequivocally upon the side 
92 



OLD ISTEW E^TQLAND ROOFTEEES 

of the colonies. In a letter written to Lord 
Percy, then stationed at Boston, this eccen- 
tric new friend of the American cause — 
himself, it must be remembered, still a 
half-pay officer in the English army — 
expressed with great freedom his opinion 
of England's position : ^^ Were the prin- 
ciple of taxing America without her con- 
sent admitted, Great Britain would that 
instant be ruined." And to General Gage, 
his warm personal friend, Lee wrote : " I 
am convinced that the court of Tiberius 
was not more treacherous to the rights of 
mankind than is the present court of Great 
Britain.'' 

It is rather odd to find that General 
Charles Lee, of whom we know so little, and 
that little scarcely to his credit, occupied in 
the military court of the American army a 
position second only to Washington ; he was 
appointed a major-general on June 17, 

93 



OLD JSTEW engla:nd kooftrees 

1775, a date marked for us by the fact that 
Bunker Hill's battle was then fought. ISTot 
long after his arrival at the camp, General 
Lee, with that tendency to independent ac- 
tion which was afterward to work to his 
undoing, took up his quarters in the Royall 
house. And Lee it was who gave to the 
fine old place the name Hobgoblin Hall. 
From this mansion, emphatically remote 
from Lee's command, the eccentric general 
was summarily recalled by his commander- 
in-chief, then, as ever after, quick to ad- 
minister to this major-general what he con- 
ceived to be needed reproof. 

The house in which General Lee next 
resided is still standing on Sycamore 
Street, Somerville. When the place was 
occupied by Lee it had one of those 
long pitched roofs, descending to a single 
story at the back, which are still occa- 
sionally met with in our interior ^N'ew 
94 



OLD KEW EISTGLAND ROOFTEEEfe 

England towns. The house was, however, 
altered to its present appearance by that 
John Tufts who occupied it during post- 
Revolutionary times. Erom this lofty 
dwelling, Lee was able to overlook Boston, 
and to observe, by the aid of a strong field- 
glass, all the activities of the enemy's camp. 

Lee himself was at this time an object 
of unfriendly espionage. In a '' separate 
and secret despatch," Lord Dartmouth in- 
structed General Gage to have a special 
eye on the ex-English officer. That Lee 
had resigned his claim to emolument in 
the English army does not seem to have 
made his countrymen as clear as it should 
have done concerning his relation to their 
cause. 

Meanwhile, General Lee, though sleep- 
ing in his wind-swept farmhouse and 
watching from its windows the movements 
of the British, indulged when opportunity 

95 



OLD JSTEW EITGLAI^D ROOFTREES 

offered in the social pleasures of the other 
American oflScers. Rough and unattrac- 
tive in appearance, — he seems to have been 
a kind of Cyrano de Bergerac, " a tall 
man, lank and thin, with a huge nose," — 
he had, when he chose, a certain amount 
of social grace, and was often extremely 
entertaining. 

Mrs. John Adams, who first met General 
Lee at an evening party at Major Mifflin's 
house in Cambridge, describes him as look- 
ing like a " careless, hardy veteran," who 
brought to her mind his namesake, Charles 
XII. " The elegance of his pen far ex- 
ceeds that of his person," commented this 
acute lady. In further describing this 
evening spent at Major Mifflin's home, in 
the Brattle mansion, Mrs. Adams writes: 
" General Lee was very urgent for me to 
tarry in town, and dine with him and the 
ladies present, but I excused myself. The 
96 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOETREES 

general was determined that I should not 
only be acquainted with him, but with his 
companions, too, and therefore placed a 
chair before me, into which he ordered 
Mr. Spada (his dog) to mount, and present 
his paw to me for better acquaintance.'^ ^ 
Lee was very fond indeed of dogs, and 
was constantly attended by one or more of 
them, this Spada being a great, shaggy 
Pomeranian, described by unbiassed critics 
as looking more like a bear than a harmless 
canine. In this connection, it is interest- 
ing to know that Lee has expressed himself 
very strongly in regard to the affection of 
men as compared with the affection of 
dogs. 

This love for dogs was, however, one of 
the more ornamental of General Lee's 
traits. His carelessness in .regard to his 

I Drake's " Historic Fields and Mansions of Mid- 
dlesex." Little, Brown & Co., publishers. 

97 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

personal appearance was famous, and not 
a few amusing stories are told of the awk- 
ward situations in which this oflBcer's 
slovenliness involved him. On one of 
Washington's journeys, in which Lee ac- 
companied him, the major-general, upon 
arriving at the house where they were to 
dine, went straight to the kitchen and de- 
manded something to eat. The cook, taking 
him for a servant, told him that she 
would give him some victuals directly, but 
that he must first help her off with the pot 
— a request with which he readily com- 
plied. He was then told to take a bucket 
and go to the well for water, and was actu- 
ally engaged in drawing it when found 
by an aid whom Washington had des- 
patched in quest of him. The cook was in 
despair when she heard her assistant ad- 
dressed by the title of " General." The 
mug fell from her hands, and dropping 
98 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

on her knees, she began crying for pardon, 
when Lee, who was ever ready to see the 
impropriety of his own conduct, but never 
willing to change it, gave her a crown, and, 
turning to the aid-de-cainp, observed: 
'^ You see, young man, the advantage of a 
fine coat; the man of consequence is in- 
debted to it for respect; neither virtue 
nor ability, without it, will make you look 
like a gentleman." ^ 

Perhaps the most remarkable episode in 
all Lee's social career, was that connected 
with Sir William Howe's famous entertain- 
ment at Philadelphia, the Mischianza. 
This was just after the affair at Monmouth, 
in the course of which Washington swore, 
and Lee was taken prisoner. Yet though 
a prisoner, the eccentric general was 
treated with the greatest courtesy, and 

1 Drake's " Historic Fields and Mansions of Mid- 
dlesex. ' ' 

L, Hi C 99 



OLD KEW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

seems even to have received a card for the 
famous ball. But, never too careful of 
his personal appearance, he must on this 
occasion have looked particularly uncouth. 
Certainly the beautiful Miss Franks, one 
of the Philadelphia belles, thought him 
far from ornamental, and, with the keen 
wit for which she was celebrated, spread 
abroad a report that General Lee came to 
the ball clad in green breeches, patched 
with leather. To prove to her that entire 
accuracy had not been used in describing 
his garb at the ball, the general sent the 
young lady the very articles of clothing 
which she had criticised! Naturally, 
neither the ladies nor their escorts thought 
any better of Lee's manners after this bit 
of horse-play, and it is safe to say he was 
not soon again invited to an evening party. 
Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Mercy Warren 
both call Lee ^' sl crabbed man." The latter 
100 



OLD I^EW EXGLAI^D KOOFTKEES 

described him in a letter to Samuel Adamis 
as " plain in his person to a degree of 
ugliness; careless even to impoliteness; 
his garb ordinary; his voice rough; his 
manners rather morose; yet sensible, 
learned, judicious, and penetrating." 

Toward the end of his life, Lee took 
refuge in an estate which he had pur- 
chased in Berkeley County, Virginia. 
Here he lived, more like a hermit than 
a citizen of the world, or a member of a 
civilised community. His house was little 
more than a shell, without partitions, and 
it lacked even such articles of furniture 
as were necessary for the most common 
uses. To a gentleman who visited him 
in this forlorn retreat, where he found a 
kitchen in one corner, a bed in another, 
books in a third, saddles and harness in 
a fourth, Lee said : " Sir, it is the most 
convenient and economical establishment 

10^ 



OLD NEW ENGLAT^D EOOETKEES 

in the world. The lines of chalk which 
you see on the floor mark the divisions of 
the apartments, and I can sit in a corner 
and give orders and overlook the whole 
without moving from my chair." ^ 

General Lee died in an obscure inn in 
Philadelphia, October 2, 1782. His will 
was characteristic: ^^ I desire most ear- 
nestly that I may not be buried in any 
church or churchyard, or within a mile 
of any Presbyterian or Baptist meeting- 
house; for since I have resided in this 
country I have kept so much bad company 
that I do not choose to continue it when 
dead." In this will, our singular hero 
paid a tribute of affectionate remembrance 
to several of his intimate friends, and of 
grateful generosity to the humble depend- 
ents who had adhered to him and minis- 

1 Sparks's "Life of Charles Lee." Little, Brown 
&Co. 

102 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

tered to his wants in his retirement. The 
bulk of his property — for he was a man 
of no small means — was bequeathed to 
his only sister, Sydney Lee, to whom he 
was ever devotedly attached. 



lU 



THE MESSAGE OF THE LANTEENS 

rHEKE are many points of view 
from which this tale of Paul 
Revere may be told, but to the 
generality of people the interest of the 
poem, and of the historical event itself, 
will always centre around Christ Church, 
on Salem Street, in the North End of Bos- 
ton — the church where the lanterns were 
hung out on the night before the battles of 
Lexington and Concord. At nearly every 
hour of the day some one may be seen in the 
now unfrequented street looking up at the 
edifice's lofty spire with an expression full 
of reverence and satisfaction. There upon 
104 




.m 



OLD ISTEW ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

the venerable structure, imbedded in the 
solid masonry of the tower front, one reads 
upon a tablet : 

THE SIGNAL LANTEKNS OF 

PAUL KEVERE 

DISPLAYED IN THE STEEPLE 

OF THIS CHURCH, 

APEiL 18, 1775, 

WARNED THE COUNTRY OF 

THE MARCH OF THE 

BRITISH TROOPS TO LEXINGTON 

AND CONCORD. 

If the pilgrim wishes to get into the 
very spirit of old Christ Church and its 
historical associations, he can even climb 
the tower — 

" By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
To the belfry chamber overhead, 
And startle the pigeons from their perch 
On the sombre rafters, that round him make 
Masses and moving shapes of shade " — 

105 



OLD NEW ENGrLANB ROOFTREES 

to look down as Captain John Pulling 
did that eventful night on — 

" The graves on the hill, 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still." 

The first time I ever climbed the tower 
I confess that I was seized with an over- 
powering sense of the weirdness and mys- 
tery of those same spectral graves, seen 
thus from above. It was dark and gloomy 
going up the stairs, and if John Pulling 
had thought of the prospect, rather than of 
his errand, I venture to say he must have 
been frightened for all his bravery, in that 
gloomy tower at midnight. 

But, of course, his mind was intent on 
the work he had to do, and on the signals 
which would tell how the British were 
to proceed on their march to seize the rebel 
stores at Concord. The signals agreed 
upon were two lanterns if the troops went 
by way of water, one if they were to go 
106 



OLD KEW ENGLAISTD ROOFTKEES 

by land. In Longfellow's story we learn 
that Pulling — 

" Through alley and street, 
Wanders and watches with eager ears, 
Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms and the tramp of feet, 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers, 
Marching down to their boats on the shore." 

It had been decided that the journey 
should be made by sea ! 

The Province of Massachusetts, it must 
be understood, was at this time on the 
eve of open revolt. It had formed an 
army, commissioned its officers, and 
promulgated orders as if there were no 
such person as George III. It was collect- 
ing stores in anticipation of the moment 
when its army should take the field. It 
had, moreover, given General Gage — 
whom the king had sent to Boston to put 
down the rebellion there — to understand 

107 



OLD E^EW E:NrGLAND KOOFTKEES 

that the first movement made by the royal 
troops into the country would be considered 
as an act of hostility, and treated as such. 
Gage had up to this time hesitated to act. 
At length his resolution to strike a crip- 
pling blow, and, if possible, to do it with- 
out bloodshed, was taken. Spies had in- 
formed him that the patriots' depot of 
ammunition was at Concord, and he had 
determined to send a secret expedition to 
destroy those stores. Meanwhile, however, 
the patriots were in great doubt as to the 
time when the definite movement was to 
be made. 

Fully appreciating the importance of 
secrecy. General Gage quietly got ready 
eight hundred picked troops, which he 
meant to convey under cover of night across 
the West Bay, and to land on the Cam- 
bridge side, thus baffling the vigilance of 
the townspeople, and at the same time con- 
108 



OLD IN^EW EIS^GLAND EOOETEEES 

siderably shortening the distance his troops 
would have to march. So much pains was 
taken to keep the actual destination of 
these troops a profound secret, that even 
the officer who was selected for the com- 
mand only received an order notifying 
him to hold himself in readiness. 

" The guards in the town were doubled," 
writes Mr. Drake, " and in order to inter- 
cept any couriers who might slip through 
them, at the proper moment mounted 
patrols were sent out on the roads leading 
to Concord. Having done what he could 
to prevent intelligence from reaching the 
country, and to keep the town quiet, the 
British general gave his orders for the em- 
barkation ; and at between ten and eleven 
of the night of April 18, the troops des- 
tined for this service were taken across the 
bay in boats to the Cambridge side of the 
river. At this hour. Gage's pickets were 

109 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

guarding the deserted roads leading into 
the country, and up to this moment no 
patriot courier had gone out." 

Pulling with his signals and Paul 
Revere on his swift horse were able, how- 
ever, to baffle successfully the plans of the 
British general. The redcoats had scarcely 
gotten into their boats, when Dawes and 
Paul Revere started by different roads to 
warn Hancock and Adams, and the people 
of the country-side, that the regulars were 
out. Revere rode by way of Charlestown, 
and Dawes by the great highroad over the 
Neck. Revere had hardly got clear of 
Charlestown when he discovered that he 
had ridden headlong into the middle of the 
British patrol ! Being the better mounted, 
however, he soon distanced his pursuers, 
and entered Medford, shouting like mad, 
" Up and arm ! Up and arm ! The regu- 
lars are out ! The regulars are out ! " 
110 



OLD NEW EI^GLx\]S^D EOOFTEEES 

Longfellow has best described the awak- 
ening of the country-side : 

*' A hurry of hoofs in the village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark. 

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a 

spark 
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet ; 
That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and 

the light. 
The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed, in its 

flight, 
Kindled the land into flame with its heat." 

The Porter house in Medford, at which 
Revere stopped long enough to rouse the 
captain of the Guards, and warn him of 
the approach of the regulars, is now no 
longer standing, but the Clark place, in 
Lexington, where the proscribed fellow- 
patriots, Hancock and Adams, were lodg- 
ing that night, is still in a good state of 
preservation. 

The room occupied by " King " Han- 
Ill 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETREES 

cock and '^ Citizen '^ Adams is the one on 
the lower floor, at the left of the entrance. 
Hancock was at this time visiting this par- 
ticular house because " Dorothy Q/' his 
fiancee, was just then a guest of the place, 
and martial pride, coupled, perhaps, with 
the feeling that he must show himself in 
the presence of his lady-love a soldier 
worthy of her favour, inclined him to show 
fight when he heard from Revere that the 
regulars were expected. His widow re- 
lated, in after years, that it was with great 
difficulty that she and the colonel's aunt 
kept him from facing the British on the 
day following the midnight ride. While 
the bell in the green was sounding the 
alarm, Hancock was cleaning his sword 
and his fusee, and putting his accoutre- 
ments in order. He is said to have been 
a trifle of a dandy in his military garb, 
and his points, sword-knot, and lace, were 
112 



OLD ^Ew e:^glaxd eooftkees 

always of the newest fashion. Perhaps 
it was the desire to show himself in all 
his war-paint that made him resist so long 
the importunities of the ladies, and the 
urgency of other friends! The astute 
Adams, it is recounted, was a little an- 
noyed at his friend's obstinacy, and, clap- 
ping him on the shoulder, exclaimed, as 
he looked significantly at the weapons, 
" That is not our business ; we belong to 
the cabinet." * 

It was Adams who threw light on the 
whole situation. Half an hour after Revere 
reached the house, the other express ar- 
rived, and the two rebel leaders, being now 
fully convinced that it was Concord which 
was the threatened point, hurried the mes- 
sengers on to the next town, after allowing 
them barely time to swallow a few mouth- 

1 Drake* s ** Historic Fields and Mansions of Mid- 
dlesex." Little, Brown & Co., publishers. 

113 



OLD :N^EW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

fuls of food. Adams did not believe that 
Gage would send an army merely to take 
two men prisoners. To him, the true ob- 
ject of the expedition was very clear. 

Revere, Dawes, and young Doctor Pres- 
cott, of Concord, who had joined them, had 
got over half the distance to the next town, 
when, at a sudden turning, they came upon 
the second redcoat patrol. Prescott leaped 
his horse over the roadside wall, and so es- 
caped across the fields to Concord. Revere 
and Dawes, at the point of the pistol, gave 
themselves up. Their business on the road 
at that hour was demanded by the officer, 
who was told in return to listen. Then, 
through the still morning air, the distant 
booming of the alarm bell's peal on peal 
was borne to their ears. 

It was the British who were now uneasy. 
Ordering the prisoners to follow them, the 
troop rode off at a gallop toward Lexington^ 
114 



I 



OLD ivTEW E]\^GLAND KOOFTKEES 

and when they were at the edge of the vil- 
lage, Eevere was told to dismount, and was 
left to shift for himself. He then ran as 
fast as his legs could carry him across the 
pastures back to the Clark parsonage, to 
report his misadventure, while the patrol 
galloped off toward Boston to announce 
theirs. But by this time, the Minute Men 
of Lexington had rallied to oppose the 
march of the troops. Thanks to the in- 
trepidity of Paul Kevere, the l^orth End 
coppersmith, the redcoats, instead of sur- 
prising the rebels in their beds, found them 
marshalled on Lexington Green, and at 
Concord Bridge, in front, flank, and rear, 
armed and ready to dispute their march to 
the bitter end. 



" You know the rest. In the books you have read 
How the British regulars fired and fled — 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farmyard wall, 

115 



OLD NEW EI^GLAND KOOFTREES 

Chasing the redcoats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

" So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm — 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

And a word that shall echo for evermore I 

For, borne on the night wind of the past. 

Through all our history, to the last, 

The people will waken and listen to hear 

The hurrying hoof beats of that steed. 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere."^ 

1 " Paul Revere's Ride : " Longfellow's Poems. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers. 

Note. — Mr. W. B. Clarke, of Boston, has called 
the writer's attention to a pamphlet entitled : 
"Paul Revere's Signal. — The True Story of 

the Signal Lanterns in Christ Church, Boston. 

— By the Rev. John Lee Watson, D. D. — New 

York, 1880." 
which seems to offer convincing proof that Cap- 
tain Pulling, Paul Revere's intimate from boy- 
hood, and not sexton Robert Newman, as is 
generally believed, was the " friend " mentioned 
in Revere's journal, pnd performed the patriotic 
office of hanging the lanterns. 

116 



HANCOCK'S DOKOTHY Q. 



r 



HE Dorothy Q. of our present 
interest is not the little maiden 
of Holmes's charming poem — 



" Grandmother's mother ; her age I guess, 
Thirteen summers, or something less ; 
Girlish bust, but womanly air ; 
Smooth, square forehead with uproUed hair, 
Lips that lover has never kissed ; 
Taper fingers and slender wrist ; 
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade ; 
So they painted the little maid. 
On her hand a parrot green 
Sits unmoving and broods serene." 

but her niece, the Dorothy Q. whom John 
Hancock loved, and was visiting at Lexing- 
ton, when Paul Revere warned him of the 
redcoats' approach. This Dorothy hap- 

117 



OLD NEW E^TGLAND KOOFTEEES 

pened to be staying just then with the 
Eeverend Jonas Clark, under the protec- 
tion of Madam Ljdia Hancock, the gov- 
ernor's aunt. And it was to meet her, his 
fiancee, that Hancock went, on the eve of 
the 19th of April, to the house made fa- 
mous by his visit. 

One imaginative writer has sketched 
for us the notable group gathered that 
April night about the time-honoured 
hearthstone in the modest Lexington par- 
sonage : '' The last rays of the setting sun 
have left the dampness of the meadows 
to gather about the home ; and each guest 
and family occupant has gladly taken seats 
within the house, while Mrs. Jonas Clark 
has closed the shutters, added a new fore- 
log, and fanned the embers to a cheerful 
flame. The young couple whom Madam 
Hancock has studiously brought together 
exchange sympathetic glances as they take 
118 



OLD KEW e^gla:n^d eooftrees 

part in the conversation. The hours wear 
away, and the candles are snuffed again 
and again. Then the guests retire, not, 
to be sure, without apprehensions of ap- 
proaching trouble, but with little thought 
that the king's strong arm of military 
authority is already extended toward their 
very roof." ^ 

Early the next morning, as we know, the 
lovers were forced to part in great haste. 
And for a time John Hancock and his 
companion, Samuel Adams, remained in 
seclusion, that they might not be seized 
by General Gage, who was bent on their 
arrest, and intended to have them sent to 
England for trial. 

The first word we are able to find con- 
cerning Hancock's whereabouts during the 
interim between his escape from Lexing- 
ton, and his arrival at the Continental 

* Drake. 

119 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTEEES 

Congress, appointed to convene at Phila- 
delphia, May 10, 1775, is contained in a 
long letter to Miss Quincy. This letter, 
which gives a rather elaborate account of 
the dangers and triumphs of the patriot's 
journey, concludes : " Pray let me hear 
from you by every Post. God bless you, my 
dear girl, and believe me most Sincerely, 
Yours most Affectionately, John Han- 
cock." 

A month later, June 10, 1775, we find 
the charming Dorothy Q., now the guest at 
Fairfield, Connecticut, of Thaddeus Burr, 
receiving this letter from her lover : 

" My Dear Doi.ly : — I am almost pre- 
vail'd on to think that my letters to my 
Aunt & you are not read, for I cannot ob- 
tain a reply, I have ask'd million questions 
& not an answer to one, I beg'd you to let 

120 



»OLD NEW ENGLAISFD ROOFTKEES 

me know what things my Aunt wanted & 
you and many other matters I wanted to 
know but not one word in answer. I 
Eeally Take it extreme unkind, pray, my 
dear, use not so much Ceremony & Re- 
servedness, why can't you use freedom in 
writing, be not afraid of me, I want long 
Letters. I am glad the little things I sent 
you were agreeable. Why did you not 
write me of the top of the Umbrella. I 
am sorry it was spoiled, but I will send you 
another by my Express which will go in a 
few days. How did my Aunt like her 
gown, & let me know if the Stockings 
suited her; she had better send a pattern 
shoe & stocking, I warrant I will suit her. 
. . . I Beg, my dear Dolly, you will write 
me often and long Letters, I will forgive 
the past if you will mend in future. Do 
ask my Aunt to make me up and send me 

121 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND KOOFTEEES 

a Watch String, and do you make up an- 
other and send me, I wear them out fast. 
I want some little thing of your doing. 
Remember me to all my Friends with you, 
as if named. I am Call'd upon and must 
obey. 

" I have sent you by Doetor Church in a 
paper Box Directed to you, the following 
things, for your acceptance, & which I do 
insist you wear, if you do not I shall think 
the Donor is the objection : 

2 pair white silk "> which stockings 

4 pair white thread f I think will fit you 

1 pair black satin ] Shoes, the other, 

1 pair Calem Co. j Shall be sent when done. 

1 very pretty light hat 

1 neat airy summer Cloak 

2 caps 
1 Fann 

" I wish these may please you, I shall be 
gratified if they do, pray write me, I will 
attend to all your Commands. 
122 



OLD ]^EW ENGLA^^D KOOFTREES 

" Adieu, my dear Girl, and believe me 
with great Esteem & affection, 

" Yours without reserve, 

" John Hancock." ^ 

It is interesting to know that while Miss 
Quincy was a guest in Fairfield, Aaron 
Burr, the nephew of her host, came to the 
house, and that his magnetic influence 
soon had an effect upon the beautiful young 
lady. But watchful Aunt Lydia prevented 
the charmer from thwarting the Hancock 
family plans, and on the 28th day of 
the following August there was a great 
wedding at Fairfield. John Hancock, 
president of the Continental Congress, and 
Miss Dorothy Quincy were joined in mar- 
riage in style befitting the family situa- 
tions. 

The noted couple went at once to Phila- 

1 New England Magazine. 

123 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 



delpliiii, where the patriot lived at inter- 
vals during the remainder of the session. 
Mrs. Hancock seems to have been much of 
the time in Boston, however, and occa- 
sionally, in the course of the next few 
years, we catch delightful glimpses through 
her husband's letters of his great affection 
for her, and for their little one. 

Under date of Philadelphia, March 10, 
1777, we read: " I shall make out as well 
as I can, but I assure you, my Dear Soul, 
I long to have you here, & I know you will 
be as expeditious as you can in coming. 
When I part from you again it must be 
a very extraordinary occasion. I have sent 
everywhere to get a gold or silver rattle 
for the child with a coral to send, but can- 
not get one. I will have one if possible on 
your coming. I have sent a sash for her 
& two little papers of pins for you. If you 
do not want them you can give them away. 
124 



OLD :^^EW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

. . . May every blessing of an Indulgent 
Providence attend you. I most sincerely 
wish you a good journey & hope I shall 
soon have the happiness of seeing you v^ith 
the utmost affection and Love. My dear 
Dolly, I am yours forever, 

" John Hancock.'' 

After two years and a half of enforced 
absence, the President of the Continental 
Congress returned home to that beautiful 
house on Beacon Street, which was unfor- 
tunately destroyed in 1863, to make room 
for a more modern building. Here the 
united couple lived very happily with their 
two children, Lydia and Washington. 

Judging by descriptions that have come 
down to us, and by the World's Fair repro- 
duction of the Hancock House, their man- 
sion must have been a very sumptuous one. 
It was built of stone, after the manner 

125 



OLD KEW EJSTGLxiND EOOFTKEES 

favoured by Bostonians who could afford 
it, with massive walls, and a balcony pro- 
jecting over the entrance door, upon which 
a large second-story window opened. 
Braintree stone ornamented the corners 
and window-places, and the tiled roof was 
surrounded by a balustrade. From the 
roof, dormer windows provided a beautiful 
view of the surrounding country. The 
grounds were enclosed by a low stone wall, 
on which was placed a light wooden fence. 
The house itself was a little distance back 
from the street, and the approach was by 
means of a dozen stone steps and a care- 
fully paved walk. 

At the right of the entrance was a recep- 
tion-room of spacious dimensions, provided 
with furniture of bird's-eye maple, covered 
with rich damask. Out of this opened 
the dining-room, sixty feet in length, in 
which Hancock was wont to entertain. 
126 



OLD NEW EKGLAiV[D KOOFTKEES 

Opposite was a smaller apartment, the 
usual dining-room of the family. Next 
adjoining were the china-room and oflSces, 
while behind were to be found the coach- 
house and barn of the estate. 

The family drawing-room, its lofty walls 
covered with crimson paper, was at the 
left of the entrance. The upper and lower 
halls of the house were hung with pictures 
of game and with hunting scenes. The 
furniture, wall-papers and draperies 
throughout the house had been imported 
from England by Thomas Hancock, and 
expressed the height of luxury for that day. 
Passing through the hall, a flight of steps 
led to a small summer-house in the garden, 
near Mount Vernon Street, and here the 
grounds were laid out in ornamental box- 
bordered beds like those still to be seen 
in the beautiful Washington home on the 
Potomac. A highly interesting comer 

127 



OLD NEW EIS^GLAI^D EOOFTEEEfe 

of the garden was that given over to the 
group of mulberry-trees, which had been 
imported from England by Thomas Han- 
cock, the uncle of John, he being, with 
others of his time, immensely interested 
in the culture of the silkworm. 

Of this beautiful home Dorothy Quincy 
showed herself well fitted to be mistress, 
and through her native grace and dignity 
admirably performed her part at the re- 
ception of D'Estaing, Lafayette, Washing- 
ton, Brissot, Lords Stanley and Wortley, 
and other noted guests. 

On October 8, 1793, Hancock died, at 
the age of fifty-six years. The last re- 
corded letter penned in his letter volume 
was to Captain James Scott, his lifelong 
friend. And it was to this Captain Scott 
that our Dorothy Q. gave her hand in a 
second marriage three years later. She 
outlived her second husband many years, 
128 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

residing at the end of her life on Federal 
Street in Boston. When turned of seventy 
she had a lithe, handsome figure, a pair of 
laughing eyes, and fine yellow ringlets in 
which scarcely a gray hair could be seen. 
And although for the second time a widow, 
she was as sprightly as a girl of sixteen. 
In her advanced years. Madam Scott re- 
ceived another call from Lafayette, and 
those who witnessed the hearty interview 
say that the once youthful chevalier and the 
unrivalled belle met as if only a summer 
had passed since their social intercourse 
during the perils of the Revolution. 



129 



BAKONESS KIEDESEL AND HER 
TOEY FEIENDS 

rHE most beautiful example of 
wifely devotion to be found in the 
annals connected with the war of 
the Revolution is that afforded by the story 
of the lovely Baroness Riedesel, whose 
husband was deputed to serve at the head 
of the German mercenaries allied to the 
king's troops, and who was herself, with 
the baron and her children, made prisoner 
of war after the battle of Saratoga. 

Riedesel was a gallant soldier, and his 
wife a fair and fascinating young woman 
at this time. They had not been long mar- 
ried when the war in America broke out, 
130 



OLD KEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

and the wife's love for her husband was 
such as to impel her to dare all the hard- 
ships of the journey and join him in the 
foreign land. Her letters and journal, 
which give a lively and vivid account of 
the perils of this undertaking, and of the 
pleasures and difficulties that she expe- 
rienced after she had succeeded in reaching 
her dear spouse, supply what is perhaps 
the most interesting human document of 
those long years of war. 

The baroness landed on the American 
continent at Quebec, and travelled amid 
great hardships to Chambly, where her 
husband was stationed. For two days 
only they were together. After that she 
returned with her children to Three Eivers. 
Soon, however, came the orders to march 
down into the enemy's country. 

The description of this journey as the 
baroness has given it to us makes, indeed, 

131 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

moving reading. Once a frightful cannon- 
ade was directed against tlie house in 
which the women and the wounded had 
taken refuge. In the cellar of this place 
Madam Eiedesel and her children passed 
the entire night. It was in this cellar, 
indeed, that the little family lived during 
the long period of waiting that preceded 
the capitulation made necessary by Bur- 
goyne^s inexcusable delay near Saratoga. 
Later the Riedesels were most hospitably 
entertained at Saratoga by General Schuy- 
ler, his wife and daughters, of whom the 
baroness never fails to speak in her journal 
with the utmost affection. 

The journey from Albany to Boston was 
full of incident and hardship, but of it 
the plucky wife writes only : " In the 
midst of all my trials God so supported 
me that I lost neither my frolicsomeness 
nor my spirits. . . ." The contrast be- 

132 



OLD NEW E:N"GLAE'D koofteees 

tween the station of the Americans and of 
the Germans who were their prisoners, is 
strikingly brought out in this passage of 
the diary : " Some of the American gen- 
erals who were in charge of us on the 
march to Boston were shoemakers; and 
upon our halting days they made boots for 
our officers, and also mended nicely the 
shoes of our soldiers. They set a great 
value upon our money coinage, which with 
them was scarce. One of our officers had 
worn his boots entirely into shreds. He 
saw that an American general had on a 
good pair, and said to him, jestingly, ' I 
will gladly give you a guinea for them.' 
Immediately the general alighted from his 
horse, took the guinea, gave up his boots, 
put on the badly-worn ones of the officer, 
and again mounted his horse." 

The journey was at length successfully 
accomplished, however, and in Massachu- 

133 



OLD NEW EIsTGLAND ROOFTREES 

setts the baroness was on the whole very 
well treated, it would seem. 

" We remained three weeks in wretched 
quarters at Winter Hill," she writes, 
" until they transferred us to Cambridge, 
where they lodged us in one of the most 
beautiful houses of the place, which had 
formerly been built by the wealth of the 
royalists. N^ever had I chanced upon any 
such agreeable situation. Seven families, 
who were connected with each other partly 
by the ties of relationship and partly by 
affection, had here farms, gardens, and 
magnificent houses, and not far off planta- 
tions of fruit. The owners of these were 
in the habit of meeting each other in the 
afternoon, now at the house of onei, and now 
at another, and making themselves merry 
with music and the dance — living in 
prosperity united and happy, until, alas! 
this ruinous war severed them, and left 
134 



OLD KEW engla:n^d rooftkees 

all their houses desolate except two, the 
proprietors of which were also soon obliged 
to flee. . . . 

" 'None of our gentlemen were allowed 
to go into Boston. Curiosity and desire 
urged me, however, to pay a visit to Madam 
Carter, the daughter of General Schuyler, 
and I dined at her house several times. 
The city throughout is pretty, but inhab- 
ited by violent patriots, and full of wicked 
people. The women especially were so 
shameless, that they regarded me with re- 
pugnance, and even spit at me when I 
passed by them. Madam Carter was as 
gentle and good as her parents, but her 
husband was wicked and treacherous. She 
came often to visit us, and also dined at 
our house with the other generals. We 
sought to show them by every means our 
gratitude. They seemed also to have much 
friendship for us; and yet at the same 

135 



OLD ]^EW ENGLA^TD EOOFTREES 

time this miserable Carter, when the 
English General Howe had burned many 
hamlets and small towns, made the hor- 
rible proposition to the Americans to chop 
off the heads of our generals, salt them 
down in small barrels, and send over to 
the English one of these barrels for every 
hamlet or little town burned down. But 
this barbarous suggestion fortunately was 
not adopted. 

"... I saw here that nothing is more 
terrible than a civil war. Almost every 
family was disunited. . . . On tlie third 
of June, 1778, I gave a ball and supper 
in celebration of the birthday of my hus- 
band. I had invited to it all the generals 
and officers. The Carters also were there. 
General Burgoyne sent an excuse after he 
had made us wait until eight o'clock in the 
evening. He invariably excused himself 
on various pretences from coming to see 
136 



OLD JVTEW EISTGLAND ROOFTKEES 

us until his departure for England, when 
he came and made me a great many apolo- 
gies, but to which I made no other answer 
than that I should be extremely sorry if 
he had gone out of his way on our account. 
We danced considerably, and our cook pre- 
pared us a magnificent supper of more 
than eighty covers. Moreover, our court- 
yard and garden were illuminated. As the 
birthday of the King of England came 
upon the following day, which was the 
fourth, it was resolved that we would not 
separate until his health had been drank; 
which was done with the most hearty 
attachment to his person and his interests. 
" Never, I believe, has ^ God Save the 
King,' been drunk with more enthusiasm 
or more genuine good will. Even both 
my oldest little daughters were there, hav- 
ing stayed up to see the illumination. All 
eyes were full of tears ; and it seemed as 

137 



OLD NEW ENGLxiND EOOFTREES 

if every one present was proud to have 
the spirit to venture to this in the midst 
of our enemies. Even the Carters could 
not shut their hearts against us. As soon 
as the company separated, v^e perceived 
that the whole house was surrounded by 
Americans, who, having seen so many peo- 
ple go into the house, and having noticed 
also the illumination, suspected that we 
were planning a mutiny, and if the slight- 
est disturbance had arisen it would have 
cost us dear. . . . 

" The Americans," says the baroness, 
further on, " when they desire to collect 
their troops together, place burning torches 
of pitch upon the hilltops, at which signal 
every one hastens to the rendezvous. We 
were once witnesses of this when General 
Howe attemped a landing at Boston in 
order to rescue the captive troops. They 
learned of this plan, as usual, long before- 
138 



OLD NEW EIsTGLAIsTD ROOFTREES 

hand, and opened barrels of pitch, where- 
upon for three or four successive days a 
large number of people without shoes and 
stockings, and with guns on their backs, 
were seen hastily coming from all direc- 
tions, by which means so many people 
came together so soon that it would have 
been a very difficult thing to effect a 
landing. 

" We lived very happily and contented 
in Cambridge, and were therefore well 
pleased at remaining there during the 
captivity of our troops. As winter ap- 
proached, however, we were ordered to 
Virginia [because of the difficulty of pro- 
viding provisions], and in the month of 
November, 1778, set out. 

" My husband, fortunately, found a 
pretty English wagon, and bought it for 
me, so that as before I was enabled to 
travel comfortably. My little Gustava 

139 



OLD FEW EISrGLA:ND KOOFTREES 

had entreated one of my husband's adju- 
tants, Captain Edmonston, not to leave us 
on the way. The confiding manner of the 
child touched him and he gave his promise 
and faithfully kept it. I travelled always 
with the army and often over almost im- 
passable roads. . . . 

^' I had always provisions with me, but 
carried them in a second small wagon. As 
this could not go as fast as we, I was often 
in want of everything. Once when we 
were passing a town called Hertford 
[Hartford, Connecticut], we made a halt, 
which, by the by, happened every fourth 
day. We there met General Lafayette, 
whom my husband invited to. dinner, as 
otherwise he would have been unable to 
find anything to eat. This placed me in 
rather an awkward dilemma as I knew 
that he loved a good dinner. Finally, 
however, I managed to glean from what 
140 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

provisions I had on hand enough to make 
him a very respectable meal. He was so 
polite and agreeable that he pleased us all 
very much. He had many Americans in 
his train, though, who were ready to leap 
out of their skins for vexation at hearing 
us speak constantly in French. Perhaps 
they feared, on seeing us on such a friendly 
footing with him, that we would be able 
to alienate him from their cause, or that 
he would confide things to us that we ought 
not to know. 

^^ Lafayette spoke much of England, 
and of the kindness of the king in having 
had all objects of interest shown to him. 
I could not keep myself from asking him 
how he could find it in his heart to accept 
so many marks of kindness from the king 
when he was on the point of departing in 
order to fight against him. Upon this ob- 
servation of mine he appeared somewhat 

141 



OLD :NEW E^GLAl^D ROOFTEEES 

ashamed, and aoiswered me : * It is true 
that such a thought passed through my 
mind one day, when the king offered to 
show me his fleet. I answered that I hoped 
to see it some day, and then quietly retired, 
in order to escape from the embarrassment 
of being obliged to decline, point blank, 
the offer, should it be repeated.' " 

The baroness's own meeting with the 
king soon after her return to England, 
in the autumn of 1780, when the prisoners 
were exchanged, is thus entertainingly 
described : " One day when we were yet 
seated at table, the queen's first lady of 
honour, my Lady Howard, sent us a mes- 
sage to the effect that her Majesty would 
receive us at six o'clock that afternoon. 
As my court dress was not yet ready, and 
I had nothing with me proper to wear, 
I sent my apologies for not going at that 
time, which I again repeated when we had 
142 



OLD I^EW ENGLAISTD ROOFTKEES 

the honour of being presented to their Maj- 
esties, who were both present at the recep- 
tion. The queen, however, as did also the 
king, received us with extraordinary gra- 
ciousness, and replied to my excuses by 
saying, ' We do not look at the dress of 
those persons we are glad to see.' 

" They were surrounded by the prin- 
cesses, their daughters. We seated our- 
selves before the chimney-fire, — the 
queen, the princesses, the first lady of 
honour, and myself, — forming a half- 
circle, my husband, with the king, stand- 
ing in the centre close to the fire. Tea 
and cakes were then, passed round. I sat 
between the queen and one of the prin- 
cesses, and was obliged to go over a great 
part of my adventures. Her majesty said 
to me very graciously, ^ I have followed 
you everywhere, and have often inquired 
after you ; and I have always heard with 

143 



OLD ISTEW E^^GLA¥D EOOFTKEES 

delight that you were well, contented, and 
beloved by every one.' I happened to have 
at this time a shocking cough. Observing 
this, the Princess Sophia went herself and 
brought me a jelly made of black currants, 
which she represented as a particularly 
good remedy, and forced me to accept a 
jar full. 

" About nine o'clock in the evening the 
Prince of Wales came in. His youngest 
sisters flocked around him, and he em- 
braced them and danced them around. 
In short, the royal family had such a pecul- 
iar gift for removing all restraint that 
one could readily imagine himself to be 
in a cheerful family circle of his own 
station in life. We remained with them 
until ten o'clock, and the king conversed 
much with my husband about America in 
German, which he spoke exceedingly well." 

From England the baroness proceeded 
144 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETKEES 

(in 1783), to her home in Brunswick, 
where she was joyfully received, and 
where, after her husband's triumph, they 
enjoyed together respite from war for a 
period of four years. In 1794, General 
Riedesel was appointed commandant of 
the city of Brunswick, where he died in 
1800. The baroness survived him eight 
years, passing away in Berlin, March 29, 
1808, at the age of sixty-two. She rests 
beside her beloved consort in the family 
vault at Lauterbach. 

Her Cam^bridge residence, which for- 
merly stood at the corner of Sparks Street, 
on Brattle, among the beautiful lindens 
so often mentioned in the " journal," has 
recently been remodelled and removed to 
the next lot but one from its original site. 
It now looks as in the picture, and is 
numbered 149 Brattle Street. A little 
street at the right has been appropriately 

145 



OLD IS^EW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

named Eiedesel Avenue. Yet even in his- 
tory-loving Cambridge there is little famil- 
iarity with the career of the baron and his 
charming lady, and there are few persons 
who have read the entertaining journal, 
written in German a century and a quarter 
ago by this clever and devoted wife. 



146 



DOCTOR CHURCH: FIRST TRAI- 
TOR TO THE AMERICAN CAUSE 

^ T^ERY few old houses retain at the 
1/ present time so large a share 
of the dignity and picturesque- 
ness originally theirs, as does the home- 
stead whose chief interest for us lies in the 
fact that it was the Revolutionary prison 
of Doctor Benjamin Church, the first-dis- 
covered traitor to the American cause. 
This house is on Brattle Street, at the 
corner of Hawthorn. Built about 1700, 
it came early into the possession of Jona- 
than Belcher, who afterward became Sir 
Jonathan, and from 1730 till 1741 was 

147 



OLD :n"ew e:n^gla:ntd eoofteees 

governor of Massachusetts and Xew 
Hampshire. Colonel John Vassall the 
elder was the next owner of the house, ac- 
quiring it in 1736, and somewhat later 
conveying it, with its adjoining estate of 
seven acres, to his brother. Major Henry, 
an officer in the militia, who died under its 
roof in 1769. 

Major Henry Vassall had married Pen- 
elope, sister of Isaac Royall, the proprietor 
of the beautiful place at Medford, but 
upon the beginning of hostilities, this 
sprightly widow abandoned her spacious 
home in such haste that she carried along 
with her, according to tradition, a young 
companion whom she had not time to 
restore to her friends ! Such of her prop- 
erty as could be used by the colony forces 
was given in charge of Colonel Stark, 
while the rest was allowed to pass into 
Boston. The barns and roomy outbuild- 
148 



OLD N^EW EIS^GLA^D ROOFTEEES 

ings were used for the storage of the 
colony forage. 

It is highly probable that the Widow 
VassalFs house at once became the Amer- 
ican hospital, and that it was the resi- 
dence, as it was certainly the prison, of 
Doctor Benjamin Church. Church had 
been placed at the head of an army hospi- 
tal for the accommodation of twenty thou- 
sand men, and till this time had seemed 
a brave and zealous compatriot of Warren 
and the other leading men of the time. 
Soon after his appointment, he was, how- 
ever, detected in secret correspondence with 
Gage. He had entrusted to a woman of 
his acquaintance a letter written in cipher 
to be forwarded to the British commander. 
This letter was found upon the girl, she 
was taken to headquarters^ and there the 
contents of the fatal message were de- 
ciphered and the defection of Doctor 

149 



OLD TvTEW ET^GLATsTD EOOFTREES 

Church established. When questioned by 
Washington he appeared utterly con- 
founded, and made no attempt to vindicate 
himself. 

The letter itself did not contain any 
intelligence of importance, but the dis- 
covery that one, until then so high in the 
esteem of his countrymen, v^as engaged in 
a clandestine correspondence with the 
enemy was deemed sufficient evidence of 
guilt. Church was therefore arrested at 
once, and confined in a chamber looking 
upon Brattle Street. Some of his leisure, 
while here imprisoned, he employed in 
cutting on the door of a closet : 

" B Chuech, jr." 

There the marks still remtdn, their sig- 
nificance having after a half century been 
interpreted by a lady of the house to whom 
160 



OLD ]^Ew e:n^gla^^d kooftrees 

thej had long been familiar, but who had 
lacked any clue to their origin until, in 
the course of a private investigation, she 
determined beyond a doubt their relation 
to Church. The chamber has two windows 
in the north front, and two overlooking the 
area on the south. 

Church's fall was the more terrible be- 
cause from a height. He was a member 
of a very distinguished family, and he had 
been afforded in his youth all the best 
opportunities of the day. In 1754 he was 
graduated at Harvard, and after studying 
with Doctor Pynchon rose to considerable 
eminence as a physician and particularly 
as a surgeon. Besides talents and genius 
of a sort, he was endowed with a rare 
poetic fancy, many of his verses being full 
of daintiness as well as of a very pretty 
wit. He was, however, somewhat extrava- 
gant in his habits, and about 1768 had 

151 



OLD IvTEW EIsrGLA:N^D EOOFTREES 

built himself an elegant country house 
near Boston. It was to sustain this, it is 
believed, that he sold himself to the king's 
cause. 

To all appearance, however, Church was 
up to the very hour of his detection one 
of the leading patriots of the time. He 
had been chosen to deliver the oration in 
the Old South Meeting-House on March 5, 
1T73, and he there pronounced a stirring 
discourse, which has still power to thrill 
the reader, upon the massacre the day cele- 
brates, and the love of liberty which 
inspired the patriots' revolt on that memo- 
rable occasion. Yet two years earlier, as 
we have since discovered from a letter of 
Governor Hutchinson, he had been anony- 
mously employing his venal pen in the 
service of the government ! 

In 1774, when he was a member of the 
Provincial Congress, he was first suspected 
152 



OLD NEW e:n^gla:ntd eooftrees 

of communication with Gage, and of re- 
ceiving a reward for his treachery. Paul 
Revere has written concerning this : " In 
the fall of '74 and the winter of 75 I 
was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly 
mechanics, who formed themselves into a 
committee for the purpose of watching the 
movements of the British soldiers and 
gaining every intelligence of the Tories. 
We held our meetings at the Green Dragon 
Tavern. This committee were astonished 
to find all their secrets known to General 
Gage, although every time they met every 
member swore not to reveal any of their 
transactions except to Hancock, Adams, 
Warren, Otis, Church, and one or two 
others." 

The traitor, of course, proved to be 
Doctor Church. One of his students who 
kept his books and knew of his money 
embarrassment first mistrusted him. Only 

153 



OLD ^^EW ENGLAIS^D KOOFTKEES 

treachery, he felt, could account for his 
master's sudden acquisition of some hun- 
dreds of new British guineas. 

The doctor was called before a council 
of war consisting of all the major-generals 
and brigadiers of the army, beside the 
adjutant-general, Washington himself 
presiding. This tribunal decided that 
Churches acts had been criminal, but re- 
manded him for the decision of the General 
Court, of which he was a member. He was 
taken in a chaise, escorted by General 
Gates and a guard of twenty men, to the 
music of fife and drum, to Watertown 
meeting-house, where the court sat. " The 
galleries," says an old writer, " were 
thronged with people of all ranks. The 
bar was placed in the middle of the broad 
aisle, and the doctor arraigned." His de- 
fence at the trial was very ingenious and 
able : — that the fatal letter was designed 
154 



OLD NEW EIS^GLAISTD KOOFTEEES 

for his brother, but that since it was not 
sent he had communicated no intelligence ; 
that there was nothing in the letter but 
notorious facts; that his exaggerations of 
the American force could only be designed 
to favour the cause of his country; and 
that his object was purely patriotic. He 
added, in a burst of sounding though un- 
convincing oratory : '^ The warmest bosom 
here does not flame with a brighter zeal 
for the security, happiness, and liberties of 
America than mine." 

These eloquent professions did not avail 
him, however. He was adjudged guilty, 
and expelled from the House of Repre- 
sentatives of Massachusetts. By order of 
the General Congress, he was condemned 
to close confinement in l^orwich jail in 
Connecticut, ^^ and debarred from the use 
of pen, ink, and paper," but his health 
failing, he was allowed (in 1776) to leave 

155 



OLD TTEW EIvTGLA^D KOOFTKEES 

the country. He sailed for the West 
Indies, — and the vessel that bore him 
was never afterward heard from. 

Some people in Church's time, as well 
as our own, have been disposed to doubt 
%he man's treachery, but Paul Kevere was 
firmly convinced that the doctor was in 
the pay of General Gage. Kevere's state- 
ment runs in part as follows : 

" The same day I met Doctor Warren. 
He was president of the Committee of 
Safety. He engaged me as a messenger 
to do the out-of-doors business for that 
committee ; which gave me an opportunity 
of being frequently with them. The Fri- 
day evening after, about sunset, I was 
sitting with some or near all that com- 
mittee in their room, which was at Mr. 
Hastings's house in Cambridge. Doctor 
Church all at once started up. 'Doctor 

156 



OLD ^TEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

Warren/ said he, ^ I am determined to go 
into Boston to-morrow.' (It set them all 
a-staring. ) Doctor Warren replied, ^ Are 
you serious, Doctor Church? They will 
hang you if they catch you in Boston.' 
He replied, ^ I am serious, and am deter- 
mined to go at all adventures.' After a 
considerable conversation. Doctor Warren 
said, * If you are determined, let us make 
some business for you.' They agreed that 
he should go to get medicine for their and 
our wounded officers." 

!N'aturally, Paul Revere, who was an 
ardent patriot as well as an exceedingly 
straightforward man, had little sympathy 
with Church's weakness, but to-day as one 
looks at the initials scratched by the pris- 
oner on the door of his cell, one's heart 
expands with pity for the man, and one 
wonders long and long whether the vessel 

157 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

on which he sailed was really lost, ^r 
whether he escaped on it to foreign shores, 
there to expiate as best he could his sin 
against himself and his country. 



158 



A VICTIM OF TWO KEYOLUTIONS 

/^ the life of Colonel James Swan, as 
in that of Doctor Benjamin Church, 
money was the root of all evil. Swan 
was almost a fool because of his pig-head- 
edness in financial adversity, and Church 
was ever a knave, plausible even when 
proved guilty. Yet both fell from the 
same cause, utter inability to keep money 
and avoid debt. 

Colonel Swan's history reads very like 
a romance. He was born in Fifeshire, 
Scotland, in 1754, and came to America 
in 1765. He found employment in Bos- 
ton, and devoted all his spare time to 
books. While a clerk of eighteen, in a 

159 



OLD I^EW EN^GLAND ROOETREES 

counting-house near Faneuil Hall; he pub- 
lished a work on the African slave trade, 
entitled, " A Discussion of Great Britain 
and Her Colonies from the Slave Trade," 
a copy of which, preserved in the Boston 
Public Library, is well worth reading for 
its flavour and wit. 

While serving an apprenticeship with 
Thaxter & Son, he formed an intimate 
friendship with several other clerks who, 
in after years, became widely known, 
among them, Benjamin Thompson, after- 
ward made Count Rumford, and Henrv 
Knox, who later became the bookseller on 
Cornhill, and finally a general in the Con- 
tinental army. 

Swan was a member of the Sons of Lib- 
erty, and took part in the famous Boston 
tea-party. He was engaged in the battle 
of Bunker Hill as a volunteer aid of War- 
ren, and was twice wounded. He also 
160 



OLD NEW E]SrGLA:NTD KOOFTREES 

witnessed the evacuation of Boston by the 
British, March 17, 1776. He later be- 
came secretary of the Massachusetts board 
of war, and was elected a member of the 
legislature. Throughout the whole war 
he occupied positions of trust, often re- 
quiring great courage and cool judgment, 
and the fidelity with which every duty was 
performed was shown by the honours con- 
ferred upon him after retiring to civil 
life. By means of a large fortune which 
fell to him, he entered mercantile business 
on a large scale, and became very wealthy. 
He owned large tracts of land in different 
parts of the country, and bought much of 
the confiscated property of the Tories, 
among other lands the estate belonging to 
Governor Hutchinson, lying on Tremont 
Street, between West and Boylston Streets. 
His large speculations, however, caused 
him to become deeply involved in debt. 

161 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTHEES 

In 1787, accordingly, he started out anew 
to make a fortune, and through the in- 
fluence of Lafayette and other men of 
prominence in Paris, he secured many 
government contracts which entailed im- 
mense profit. Through all the dark days 
of the French Revolution, he tried to serve 
the cause of the proscribed French nobility 
by perfecting plans for them to colonise 
on his lands in America. A large number 
he induced to immigrate, and a vast quan- 
tity of the furniture and belongings of 
these unfortunates was received on board 
his ships. But before the owners could 
follow their furniture, the axe had fallen 
upon their heads. 

When the Reign of Terror was at its 
height, the Sally, owned by Colonel Swan, 
and commanded by Captain Stephen 
Clough, of Wiscasset, Maine, came home 
with a strange cargo and a stranger story. 
162 



OLD ^TEW EXGLAKD KOOFTKEES 

The cargo consisted of French tapestries, 
marquetry, silver with foreign crests, rare 
vases, clocks, costly furniture, and no end 
of apparelling fit for a queen. The story 
was that, only for the failure at the last 
moment of a plot for her deliverance, 
Marie Antoinette would also have been on 
the sloop, the plan being that she should 
be the guest at Wiscasset of the captain's 
wife until she could be transferred to a 
safer retreat. 

However true may be the rumour of a 
plot to bring Marie Antoinette to America, 
it is certain that the furniture brought on 
the Sally, was of exceptional value and 
beauty. It found its resting-place in the 
old Swan house of our picture, to which 
it gave for many years the name of the 
Marie Antoinette house. One room wa3 
even called the Marie Antoinette room, 
and the bedstead of this apartment, which 

163 



OLD NEW EJSTGLAND EOOETREES 

is to-day in the possession of the descend- 
ants of Colonel Swan, is still known as the 
Marie Antoinette bedstead. Whether the 
unhappy queen ever really rested on this 
bed cannot, of course, be said, but tradition 
has it that it was designed for her use in 
America because she had found it com- 
fortable in Erance. 

Colonel Swan, having paid all his debts, 
returned in 1795 to the United States, 
accompanied by the beautiful and eccentric 
gentlewoman who was his wife, and who 
had been with her husband in Paris during 
the Terror. They brought with them on 
this occasion a very large collection of fine 
French furniture, decorations, and paint- 
ings. The colonel had become very 
wealthy indeed through his commercial 
enterprises, and was now able to spend a 
great deal of money upon his fine Dorches- 
ter mansion, which he finished about the 
164 



OLD NEW EJSTGLAND KOOFTREES 

year 1796. A prominent figure of the 
house was the circular dining-hall, thirty- 
two feet in diameter, crowned at the height 
of perhaps twenty-five feet by a dome, 
and having three mirror windows. As 
originally built, it contained no fireplaces 
or heating conveniences of any kind. 

Mrs. Swan accompanied her husband 
on several subsequent trips to Paris, and 
it was on one of these occasions that the 
colonel came to great grief. He had con- 
tracted, it is said, a debt claimed in France 
to be two million francs. This indebted- 
ness he denied, and in spite of the per- 
suasion of his friends he would make no 
concession in the matter. As a matter of 
principle he would not pay a debt which, 
he insisted, he did not owe. He seems 
to have believed the claim of his creditor 
to be a plot, and he at once resolved to be 
a martyr. He was thereupon arrested, and 

165 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

confined in St. Pelagie^ a debtor's prison, 
from 1808 to 1830, a period of twenty-two 
years ! 

He steadfastly denied the charge against 
him, and, although able to settle the debt, 
preferred to remain a prisoner to securing 
his liberty on an unjust plea. . . . He 
gave up his wife, children, friends, and the 
comforts of his Parisian and New England 
homes for a principle, and made prepara- 
tions for a long stay in prison. Lafayette, 
Swan's sincere friend, tried in vain to pre- 
vail upon him to take his liberty.^ 

Doctor Small, his biographer, tells us 
that he lived in a little cell in the prison, 
and was treated with great respect by the 
other prisoners, they putting aside their 
little furnaces with which they cooked, that 
he might have more room for exercise. 
Not a day passed without some kind act 

1 " History of Swan's Island." 

166 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTEEES 

on his part, and he was known to have been 
the cause of the liberation of many poor 
debtors. When the jailor introduced his 
pretended creditor, he would politely salute 
him, and say to the former : " My friend, 
return me to my chamber.'' 

With funds sent by his wife, Swan hired 
apartments in the Rue de la Clif, opposite 
St. Pelagic, which he caused to be fitted 
up at great expense. Here were dining 
and drawing rooms, coaches, and stables, 
and outhouses, and here he invited his 
guests and lodged his servants, putting at 
the disposal of the former his carriages, 
in which they drove to the promenade, 
the ball, the theatre — everywhere in his 
name. At this Parisian home he gave 
great dinners to his constant but bewil- 
dered friends. He seemed happy in thus 
braving his creditors and judges, we are 
told, allowed his beard to grow, dressed 

167 



OLD NEW E^GLAISTD KOOFTREES 

a la mode, and was cheerful to the last day 
of his confinement. 

His wife died in 1825, and ^ve years 
later the Revolution of July threw open his 
doors in the very last hour of his twenty- 
second year of captivity. His one desire 
upon being released was to embrace his 
friend Lafayette, and this he did on the 
steps of the Hotel de Ville. Then he re- 
turned, July 31, to reinstate himself 
in prison — for St. Pelagic had after 
twenty-two years come to stand to him for 
home. He was seized almost immediately 
upon his second entrance into confinement 
with a hemorrhage, and died suddenly in 
the Rue d'Echiquier, aged seventy-six. In 
his will, he donated large sums of money 
to his four children, and to the city of 
Boston to found an institution to be called 
the Swan Orphan Academy. But the 
estate was found to be hopelessly insolvent, 
168 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

and the public legacy was never paid. 
The coloners name lives, however, in the 
Maine island he purchased in 1786, for the 
purpose of improving and settling, — a 
project which, but for one of his periodic 
failures, he would probably have success- 
fully accomplished. 



169 



THE WOMAN VETERAlSr OF THE 
CONTIJ^TENTAL ARMY 

jnvEBOEAH SAMPSOI^ GA]^- 
13 NETT, of Sharon, has the unique 
distinction of presenting the only 
authenticated case of a woman's enlist- 
ment and service as a regular soldier in 
the Revolutionary army. 

The proof of her claim's validity can be 
found in the resolutions of the General 
Court of Massachusetts, where, under date 
of January 20, 1792, those who take the 
trouble may find this entry : '^ On the 
petition of Deborah Gannett, praying com- 
pensation for services performed in the 
late army of the United States. 
170 



OLD NEW ENGLAOT) KOOFTKEES 



" Whereas, it appears to this court that 
Deborah Gannett enlisted under the name 
of Eobert Shurtleff, in Captain Webb's 
company in the Fourth Massachusetts 
regiment, on May 21, 1782, and did actu- 
ally perform the duties of a soldier in the 
late army of the United States to the 
twenty-third day of October, 1783, for 
which she has received no compensation; 

" And, whereas, it further appears that 
the said Deborah exhibited an extraor- 
dinary instance of female heroism by dis- 
charging the duties of a faithful, gallant 
soldier, and at the same time preserved 
the virtue and chastity of her sex unsus- 
pected and unblemished, and was dis- 
charged from the service with a fair and 
honourable character; therefore, 

" Resolved, that the treasurer of the 
Commonwealth be, and hereby is, directed 
to issue his note to said Deborah for the 

171 



OLD NEW E:N;GLAND EOOFTEEES 

sum of £34, bearing interest from October 
23, 1783." 

Thus was the seal of authenticity set 
upon as extraordinary a story as can be 
found in the annals of this country. 

Deborah Sampson was born in Plymp- 
ton, Plymouth County, December 17, 
1760, of a family descended from Governor 
Bradford. She had many brothers who 
enlisted for service early in the war, and it 
was their example, according to some ac- 
counts, which inspired her unusual course. 

If one may judge from the hints thrown 
out in the " Female Review,'' a quaint 
little pamphlet probably written by Debo- 
rah herself, and published in 1797, how- 
ever, it was the ardent wooing of a too 
importunate lover which drove the girl 
to her extraordinary undertaking. Two 
copies of this " Review " are now treas- 
ured in the Boston Public Library. 
172 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

In the first chapters, the author dis- 
courses upon female education and the 
like, and then, after a sympathetic analysis 
of the educational aspirations of the 
heroine (referred to throughout the book 
as " our illustrious fair "), and a perora- 
tion on the lady's religious beliefs, de- 
scribes in Miss Sampson's own words a 
curious dream she once had. 

The young woman experienced this 
psychic visitation, the author of the " Ee- 
view " would have us believe, a short time 
before taking her final step toward the 
army. In the dream, a serpent bade her 
" arise, stand on your feet, gird yourself, 
and prepare to encounter your enemy." 
This, according to the chronicler's inter- 
pretation, was one underlying cause of 
Deborah's subsequent decision to enlist as 
a soldier. 

Yet her mother's wish that she should 

173 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

marry a man for whom she felt no love 
is also suggested as a cause, and there is 
a hint, too, that the death in the battle 
of Long Island, New York, of a man to 
whom she was attached^ gave the final im- 
pulse to her plan. At any rate, it was the 
night that she heard the news of this man's 
death that she started on her perilous 
undertaking. 

" Having put in readiness the materials 
she had judged requisite," writes her chron- 
icler, "she retired at her usual hour to bed, 
intending to rise at twelve. . . . There 
was none but the Invisible who could take 
cognisance of her passion on assuming her 
new garb." 

She slipped cautiously away, and trav- 
elled carefully to Bellingham, where she 
enlisted as a Continental soldier on a three 
years' term. She was mustered into the 
army at Worcester, under the name of 
174 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

Robert Shurtleff. With about fifty other 
soldiers she soon arrived at West Point, 
and it there fell to her lot to be in Captain 
Webb's company, in Colonel Shepard's 
regiment, and in General Patterson's 
brigade. 

Naturally the girl's disappearance from 
home had caused her friends and her fam- 
ily great uneasiness. Her mother re- 
proached herself for having urged too 
constantly upon the attention of her child 
the suit of a man for whom she did not 
care, and her lover upbraided himself for 
having been too importunate in his wooing. 
The telephone and telegraph not having 
been invented, it was necessary, in order 
to trace the lost girl, to visit all the places 
to which Deborah might have flown. Her 
brother, therefore, made an expedition one 
hundred miles to the eastward among 
some of the family relations, and her 

175 



OLD IS^EW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

suitor took his route to the west of Mas- 
sachusetts and across into !N"ew York 
State. 

In the course of his search he visited;, 
as it happened, the very place in which 
Deborah's company was stationed, and 
saw (though he did not recognise) his lost 
sweetheart. She recognised him, however, 
and hearing his account to the officers of 
her mother's grief and anxiety, sent home 
as soon as opportunity offered, the follow- 
ing letter : 

" Dear Parent : — On the margin of 
one of those rivers which intersects and 
winds itself so beautifully majestic through 
a vast extent of territory of the United 
States is the present situation of your un- 
worthy but constant and affectionate 
daughter. I pretend not to justify or even 
to palliate my clandestine elopement. In 
176 



OLD ^EW ENGLAl^D EOOETREES 

hopes of pacifying your mind, which I 
am sure must be afflicted beyond measure, 
I write you this scrawl. Conscious of not 
having thus abruptly absconded by reason 
of any fancied ill treatment from you, or 
disaffection toward any, the thoughts of 
my disobedience are truly poignant. 
Neither have I a plea that the insults of 
man have driven me hence: and let this 
be your consoling reflection — that I have 
not fled to offer more daring insults to 
them by a proffered prostitution of that 
virtue which I have always been taught 
to preserve and revere. The motive is 
truly important; and when I divulge it 
my sole ambition and delight shall be to 
make an expiatory sacrifice for my trans- 
gression. 

" I am in a large but well regulated 
family. My employment is agreeable, 
although it is somewhat different and more 

177 



OLD ISTEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

intense than it was at home. But I appre- 
hend it is equally as advantageous. My 
superintendents are indulgent; but to a 
punctilio they demand a due observance of 
decorum and propriety of conduct. By 
this you must know I have become mistress 
of many useful lessons, though I have 
many more to learn. Be not too much 
troubled, therefore, about my present or 
future engagements; as I will endeavour 
to make that prudence and virtue my 
model, for which, I own, I am much in- 
debted to those who took the charge of my 
youth. 

" My place of residence and the adjoin- 
ing country are beyond description de- 
lightsome. . . . Indeed, were it not for 
the ravages of war, of which I have seen 
more here than in Massachusetts, this part 
of our great continent would become a 
paradisiacal elysium. Heaven condescend 
178 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOETKEES 

that a speedy peace may constitute us a 
happy and independent nation: when the 
husband shall again be restored to his 
amiable consort, to wipe her sorrowing 
tear, the son to the embraces of his mourn- 
ing parents, and the lover to the tender, 
disconsolate, and half -distracted object of 
his love. 

" Your affectionate 

" Daughter." 

Unfortunately this letter, which had to 
be entrusted to a stranger, was intercepted. 
But Deborah did not know this, and her 
mind at rest, she pursued cheerfully the 
course she had marked out for herself. 

The fatigue and heat of the march op- 
pressed the girl soldier more than did bat- 
tle or the fear of death. Yet at White 
Plains, her first experience of actual war- 
fare, her left-hand man was shot dead in 

179 



OLD Iv^EW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

the second fire, and she herself received 
two shots through her coat and one through 
her cap. In the terrible bayonet charge 
at this same battle, in which she was a par- 
ticipant, the sight of the bloodshed proved 
almost too much for her strength. 

At Yorktown she was ordered to work 
on a battery, which she did right faith- 
fully. Among her comrades, Deborah's 
young and jaunty appearance won for her 
the sobriquet " blooming boy." She was 
a great favourite in the ranks. She shirked 
nothing, and did duty sometimes as a 
common soldier and sometimes as a ser- 
geant on the lines, patrolling, collecting 
fuel, and performing such other offices as 
fell to her lot. 

After the battle of White Plains she 

received two severe wounds, one of which 

was in her thigh. J^aturally, a surgeon 

was sent for at once, but the plucky girl, 

180 



OLD isTEw e:n^glai^d rooftrees 

who could far more easily endure pain 
than the thought of discovery, extracted 
the ball herself with penknife and needle 
before hospital aid arrived. 

In the spring of 1783 General Patterson 
selected her for his waiter, and Deborah 
so distinguished herself for readiness and 
courage that the general often praised to 
the other men of the regiment the heroism 
of his " smock-faced boy." 

It is at this stage of the story that the 
inevitable denouement occurred. The 
young soldier fell ill with a prevailing 
epidemic, and during her attack of un- 
consciousness her sex was discovered by the 
attendant physician. Doctor Bana. Imme- 
diately she was removed by the physician's 
orders to the apartment of the hospital 
matron, under whose care she remained 
until discharged as well. 

Deborah's appearance in her uniform 

181 



OLD NEW engla:n^d rooftrees 

was sufficiently suggestive, as lias been 
said, of robust masculinity to attract the 
favourable attention of many young 
women. What she had not counted upon 
was the arousing in one of these girls of 
a degree of interest which should imperil 
her secret. Her chagrin, the third morn- 
ing after the doctor's discovery, was appre- 
ciably deepened, therefore, by the arrival 
of a love-letter from a rich and charming 
young woman of Baltimore whom the sol- 
dier, " Robert Shurtleff," had several 
times met, but whose identity with the 
writer of the letter our heroine by no 
means suspected. This letter, accompanied 
by a gift of fruit, the compiler of the 
" Female Review " gives as follows : 

" Dear Sir : — Fraught with the feel- 
ings of a friend who is doubtless beyond 
your conception interested in your health 
182 



OLD NEW Ej^GLAND KOOFTKEES 

and happiness, I take liberty to address you 
with a frankness which nothing but the 
purest friendship and affection can pal- 
liate, — know, then, that the charms I first 
read on your visage brought a passion 
into my bosom for which I could not ac- 
count. If it was from the thing called 
LOVE, I was before mostly ignorant of it, 
and strove to stifle the fugutive; though 
I confess the indulgence was agreeable. 
But repeated interviews with you kindled 
it into a flame I do not now blush to own : 
and should it meet a generous return, I 
shall not reproach myself for its in- 
dulgence. I have long sought to hear 
of your department, and how painful 
is the news I this moment received that 
you are sick, if alive, in the hospital! 
Your complicated nerves will not admit 
of writing, but inform the bearer if you 
are necessitated for anything that can con- 

183 



OLD l^EW EKGLAT^D ROOFTKEES 

duce to jour comfort. If you recover and 
think proper to inquire my name, I will 
give you an opportunity. But if death 
is to terminate your existence there, let 
your last senses be impressed with the re- 
flection that you die not without one more 
friend whose tears will bedew your funeral 
obsequies. Adieu." 

The distressed invalid replied to this 
note that '^ he " was not in need of money. 
The same evening, however, another mis- 
sive was received, enclosing two guineas. 
And the like favours were continued 
throughout the soldier's stay at the hos- 
pital. 

Upon recovery, the " blooming boy " re- 
sumed his uniform to rejoin the troops. 
Doctor Bana had kept the secret, and there 
seemed to Deborah no reason why she 

184 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

should not pursue her soldier career to the 
end. 

The enamoured maid of Baltimore still 
remained, however, a thorn in her con- 
science. And one day, when near Baltimore 
on a special difty, our soldier was sum- 
moned by a note to the home of this young 
woman, who, confessing herself the writer 
of the anonymous letter, declared her love. 
Just what response was made to this 
avowal is not known, but that the attract- 
ive person in soldier uniform did not at 
this time tell the maid of Baltimore the 
whole truth is certain. 

Events were soon, however, to force 
Deborah to perfect frankness with her ad- 
mirer. After leaving Baltimore, she went 
on a special duty journey, in the course of 
which she was taken captive by In- 
dians. The savage who had her in his 

185 



OLD ISTEW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

charge she was obliged to kill in self-de- 
fence, after which there seemed every 
prospect that she and the single Indian 
lad who escaped with her would perish in 
the wilderness, a prey to wild beasts. 
Thereupon she wrote to her Baltimore 
admirer thus : 

" Deae Miss : — Perhaps you are 

the nearest friend I have. But a few hours 
must inevitably waft me to an infinite dis- 
tance from all sublunary enjoyments, and 
fix me in a state of changeless retribu- 
tion. Three years having made me the 
sport of fortune, I am at length doomed 
to end my existence in a dreary wilder- 
ness, unattended except by an Indian boy. 
If you receive these lines, remember they 
come from one who sincerely loves you. 
But, my amiable friend, forgive my imper- 

186 



OLD NEW EI^GLAXD KOOFTKEES 

fections and forget you ever had affection 
for one so unworthy the name of 

" YouE Own Sex." 

'No means of sending this letter pre- 
sented itself, however, and after a dreary 
wandering, Deborah was enabled to rejoin 
her soldier friends. Then she proceeded 
to Baltimore for the express purpose of 
seeing her girl admirer and telling her the 
truth. Yet this time, too, she evaded her 
duty, and left the maiden still unenlight- 
ened, with a promise to return the ensuing 
spring — a promise, she afterward de- 
clared, she had every intention of keeping, 
had not the truth been published to the 
world in the intervening time. 

Doctor Bana had been only deferring 
the uncloaking of " Robert Shurtleff.'' 
Upon Deborah's return to duty, he made 
the culprit herself the bearer of a letter to 

187 



OLD IsTEW E:NrGLA:^rD ROOFTEEES 

General Patterson, which disclosed the 
secret. 

The general, who was at West Point at 
the time, treated her with all possible kind- 
ness, and commended her for her service, 
instead of punishing her, as she had feared. 
Then he gave her a private apartment, and 
made arrangements to have her safely con- 
ducted to Massachusetts. 

E^ot quite yet, however, did Deborah 
abandon her disguise. She passed the next 
winter with distant relatives under the 
name of her youngest brother. But she 
soon resumed her proper name, and re- 
turned to her delighted family. 

After the war, she married Benjamin 
Gannett, and the homestead in Sharon, 
where she lived for the rest of her life, 
is still standing, relics of her occupancy, 
her table and her Bible, being shown there 
to-day to interested visitors. 
188 



OLD ]N"Ew ei^gla:n^d rooftrees 

In 1802 she made a successful lecturing 
tour, during which she kept a very inter- 
esting diary, whick is still exhibited to 
those interested by her great-granddaugh- 
ter, Mrs. Susan Moody. Her grave in 
Sharon is carefully preserved, a street has 
been named in her honour, and several 
patriotic societies have constituted her 
their principal deity. Certainly her story 
is curious enough to entitle her to some 
distinction. 



189 



THE KEDEEMED CAPTIVE 

X^F all the towns settled by English- 
r^ men in the midst of Indians, none 
was more thoroughly peaceful in its 
aims and origin than Deerfield, in the old 
Pocumtuck Valley. Here under the giant 
trees of the primeval forest the white- 
haired Eliot prayed, and beside the banks 
of the sluggish stream he gathered as 
nucleus for the town the roving savages 
upon whom his gospel message had made 
a deep impression. Quite naturally, there- 
fore, the men of Pocumtuck were not dis- 
quieted by news of Indian troubles. With 
the natives about them they had lived on 
peaceful terms for many years, and it was 
190 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

almost impossible for them to believe that 
they would ever come to shudder at the 
mere presence of redskins. Yet history 
tells us, and Deerfield to-day bears witness 
to the fact, that no town in all the colonies 
suffered more at the hands of the Indians 
than did this peaceful village in Western 
Massachusetts. 

In 1702 King William died, and "good" 
Queen Anne reigned in his stead. Follow- 
ing closely upon the latter event came an- 
other war between France and England, a 
conflict which, as in the reign of William 
and Mary, renewed the hostilities between 
the French and English colonies in Amer- 
ica. At an early date, accordingly, the set- 
tlement of Deerfield discovered that it was 
to be attacked by the French. At once 
measures were taken to strengthen the 
fortifications of the town, and to prepare, 
so far as possible, for the dreaded event. 

191 



OLD I^EW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

The blow fell on the night of the twentj- 
ninth of February, 1704, when Major Her- 
tel de Rouville, with upwards of three 
hundred and forty French and Indians, 
arrived at a pine bluff overlooking Deer- 
field meadow, about two miles north of 
the village — a locality now known as 
Petty's Plain. Here he halted, to await 
the appropriate hour for an attack, and 
it was not until early morning that, leav- 
ing their packs upon the spot, his men 
started forward for their terrible work of 
destruction. Rouville took great pains not 
to alarm the sentinels in his approach, but 
the precaution was unnecessary, as the 
watch were unfaithful, and had retired to 
rest. Arriving at the fortifications, he 
found the snow drifted nearly to the top 
of the palisades, and his entire party en- 
tered the place undiscovered, while the 
whole population were in profound sleep. 
192 



OLD NEW EKGLAl^D ROOFTEEES 

Quietly distributing themselves in parties, 
they broke in the doors of the houses, 
dragged out the astonished inhabitants, 
killed such as resisted, and took prisoner 
the majority of the remainder, only a few 
escaping from their hands into the woods. 
The house of Reverend John Williams 
was assaulted at the beginning of the 
attack. Awakened from sleep, Mr. Will- 
iams leaped from his bed, and running to 
the door found the enemy entering. Call- 
ing to two soldiers who lodged in the house, 
he sprang back to his bedroom, seized a 
pist(ol, cocked it, and presented it at the 
breast of an Indian who had followed him. 
It missed fire, and it was well, for the 
room was thronged in an instant, and he 
was seized, bound without being allowed the 
privilege of dressing, and kept standing in 
the cold for an hour. Meanwhile, the sav- 
ages amused themselves by taunting him, 

193 



OLD :N^EW EI^GLAISTD KOOFTREES 

swinging their hatchets over him and 
threatening him. Two of his children and 
a negro woman were then taken to the door 
and butchered. Mrs. Williams was al- 
lowed to dress, and she and her ^ve 
children were taken captives. Other 
houses in the village were likewise at- 
tacked, one of them being defended by 
seven men, for whom the women inside 
cast bullets while the fight was in progress. 
But the attacking force was an over- 
powering one, and De Eouville and his 
men had by sunrise done their work most 
successfully with torch and tomahawk. 
The blood of forty-nine murdered men, 
women and children reddened the snow. 
Twenty-nine men, twenty-four women, and 
fifty-eight children were made captive, and 
in a few hours the spoil-encumbered enemy 
were en route for Canada. 

Through the midwinter snow which cov- 
194 ~ 



OLD KEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

ered the fields the poor captives marched 
out on their terrible pilgrimage. Two of 
the prisoners succeeded in escaping, where- 
upon Mr. Williams was ordered to inform 
the others that if any more slipped away 
death by fire would be visited upon those 
who remained. The first night's lodgings 
were provided for as comfortably as cir- 
cumstances would permit, and all the able- 
bodied among the prisoners were made to 
sleep in bams. On the second day's march 
Mr. Williams was permitted to speak with 
his poor wife, whose youngest child had 
been born only a few weeks before, and to 
assist her on her journey. 

" On the way," says the pastor, in his 
famous book, " The Redeemed Captive," 
" we discoursed on the happiness of those 
who had a right to an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens; and God 
for a father and friend ; as also it was our 

195 



OLD NEW ENGLAISTD EOOFTEEES 

reasonable duty quietly to submit to the 
will of God, and to say, ' The will of the 
Lord be done.' " Thus imparting to one 
another their heroic courage and Christian 
strength and consolation, the captive cou- 
ple pursued their painful way. 

At last the poor woman announced the 
gradual failure of her strength, and during 
the short time she was allowed to remain 
with her husband, expressed good wishes 
and prayers for him and her children. 
The narrative proceeds : " She never spake 
any discontented word as to what had be- 
fallen her, but with suitable expressions 
justified God in what had happened. . . . 
We soon made a halt, in which time my 
chief surviving master came up, upon which 
I was put into marching with the foremost, 
and so made my last farewell of my dear 
wife, the desire of my eyes, and companion 
in many mercies and afflictions. Upon our 
196 



OLD ^EW EITGLAIsrD EOOFTREES 

separation from each other, we asked for 
each other grace sufficient for what God 
should call us to." 

For a short time Mrs. Williams re- 
mained where her husband had left her, 
occupying her leisure in reading her Bible. 
He, as was necessary, went on, and soon 
had to ford a small and rapid stream, and 
climb a high mountain on its other side. 
Reaching the top very much exhausted, 
he was unburdened of his pack. Then his 
heart went down the steep after his wife. 
He entreated his master to let him go 
down and help her, but his desire was re- 
fused. As the prisoners one after another 
came up he inquired for her, and at length 
the news of her death was told to him. 
In wading the river she had been thrown 
down by the water and entirely submerged. 
Yet after great difficulty she had succeeded 
in reaching the bank, and had penetrated 

197 



OLD :new exgland roofteees 

to the foot of the mountain. Here, how- 
ever, her master had become discouraged 
with the idea of her maintaining the 
march, and burying his tomahawk in her 
head he left her dead. Mrs. Williams was 
the daughter of Eeverend Eleazer Mather, 
the first minister of Northampton — an 
educated, refined, and noble woman. It is 
pleasant, while musing upon her sad fate, 
to recall that her body was found and 
brought back to Deerfield, where, long 
years after, her husband was laid by her 
side. And there to-day sleeps the dust of 
the pair beneath stones which inform the 
stranger of the interesting spot. 

Others of the captives were killed upon 
the journey as convenience required. A 
journal kept by Stephen Williams, the 
pastor's son, who was only eleven years 
old when captured, reflects in an artless 
way every stage of the terrible journey: 
198 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

" The J travelled/' he writes, ^^ as if they 
meant to kill us all, for they travelled 
thirty-five or forty miles a day. . . . 
Their manner was, if any loitered, to kill 
them. My feet were very sore, so I thought 
they would kill me also." 

When the first Sabhath arrived, Mr. 
Williams was allowed to preach. His text 
was taken from the Lamentations of Jere- 
miah, the verse in which occurs the passage, 
" My virgins and my young men have gone 
into captivity." 

Thus they progressed, the life of the 
captives dependent in everj case upon 
their ability to keep up with the party. 
Here an innocent child would be knocked 
upon the head and left in the snow, and 
there some poor woman dropped by the 
way and killed by the tomahawk. Arriv- 
ing at White River, De Rouville divided 
his forces, and the parties took separate 

199 



OLD iNTEW ENGLAND ROOETREES 

routes to Canada. The group to which 
Mr. Williams was attached went up White 
River, and proceeded, with various adven- 
tures, to Sorel in Canada, to which place 
some of the captives had preceded him. 
In Canada, all who arrived were treated 
by the Erench with great humanity, and 
Mr. Williams with marked courtesy. He 
proceeded to Chambly, thence to St, 
Erancis on the St. Lawrence, afterward to 
Quebec, and at last to Montreal, where 
Governor Vaudreuil accorded him much 
kindness, and eventually redeemed him 
from savage hands. 

Mr. Williams's religious experiences in 
Canada were characteristic of the times. 
He was there thrown among Romanists, a 
sect against which he entertained the most 
profound dislike — profound to the degree 
of inflammatory conscientiousness, not to 
say bigotry. His Indian master was deter- 
200 



OLD TTEw e^gla:ntd eooftrees 

mined he should go to church, but he would 
not, and was once dragged there, where, he 
sajs, he " saw a great confusion instead 
of any Gospel order." The Jesuits as- 
sailed him on every hand, and gave him 
but little peace. His master at one time 
tried to make him kiss a crucifix, under 
the threat that he would dash out his 
brains with a hatchet if he should refuse. 
But he did refuse, and had the good for- 
tune to save his head as well as his con- 
science. Mr. Williams's own account of 
his stay in Canada is chiefly devoted to 
anecdotes of the temptations to Romanism 
with which he was beset by the Jesuits. 
His son Samuel was almost persuaded to 
embrace the faith of Rome, and his daugh- 
ter Eunice was, to his great chagrin, forced 
to say prayers in Latin. But, for the most, 
the Deerfield captives proved intractable, 
and were still aggressively Protestant 

201 



OLD IN^EW E^GLAISTD KOOFTEEES 

when, in 1706, Mr. Williams and all his 
children (except Eunice, of whom we shall 
say more anon), together with the other 
captives up to the number of fifty-seven, 
embarked on board a ship sent to Quebec 
by Governor Dudley, and sailed for Bos- 
ton. 

A committee of the pastor's people met 
their old clergyman upon his landing at 
Boston, and invited him to return to the 
charge from which he had, nearly three 
years before, been torn. And Mr. Will- 
iams had the courage to accept their offer, 
notwithstanding the fact that the war con- 
tinued with unabated bitterness. In 1707 
the town voted to build him a house " as 
big as Ensign Sheldon's, and a back room 
as big as may be thought convenient." 
This house is still standing (1902), though 
Ensign Sheldon's, the " Old Indian House 
in Deerfield," as it has been popularly 
202 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

called, was destroyed more than half a 
century ago. The Indian House stood at 
the northern end of Deerfield Common, 
and exhibited to its latest day the marks 
of the tomahawk left upon its front door 
in the attack of 1704, and the perforations 
made by the balls inside. The door is still 
preserved, and is one of the most interest- 
ing relics now to be seen in Memorial Hall, 
Deerfield. 

For more than twenty years after his 
return from captivity, Mr. Williams 
served his parish faithfully. He took into 
his new house a new wife, by whom he 
had several children; and in this same 
house he passed peacefully away June 12, 
1729, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, 
and the forty-fifth of his ministry. 

Stephen Williams, who had been taken 
captive when a lad of eleven, was redeemed 
in 1705 with his father. In spite of the 

203 



OLD ISTEW ENGLA^s^D KOOFTREES 

hardships to which he had been so early ex- 
posed, he was a fine strong boy when he 
returned to Deerfield, and he went on with 
his rudely interrupted education to such 
good effect that he graduated from Har- 
vard in 1713 at the age of twenty. In 1716 
he settled as minister at Longmeadow^ 
in which place he died in 1§72. Yet 
his manhood was not passed without share 
in the wars of the time, for he was chap- 
lain in the Louisburg expedition in 1745, 
and in the regiment of Colonel Ephraim 
Williams in his fatal campaign in 1755, 
and again in the Canadian campaign of 
1756. The portrait of him which is here 
given was painted about 1748, and is now 
to be seen in the hall of the Pocumtuck 
Valley Memorial Association, within four- 
score rods of the place where the boy cap- 
tive was born, and from which he was 
carried as a tender child into captivity. 
204 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

It has been said that one of the greatest 
trials of Mr. Williams's stay in Canada 
was the discovery that his little daughter^ 
Eunice, had been taught by her Canadian 
captors to say prayers in Latin. But this 
was only the beginning of the sorrow of 
the good man's life. Eunice was a plastic 
little creature, and she soon adopted not 
only the religion, but also the manners and 
customs of the Indians among whom she 
had fallen. In fact and feeling she became 
a daughter of the Indians, and there among 
them she married, on arriving at woman- 
hood, an Indian by whom she had a family 
of children. A few years after the war she 
made her first visit to her Deerfield rela- 
tives, and subsequently she came twice to 
Massachusetts dressed in Indian costume. 
But all the inducements held out to her to 
remain there were in vain. During her 
last visit she was the subject of many 

205 



OLD NEW engla:n^d rooftrees 

prayers and lengthy sermonising on the 
part of her clerical relatives, an address 
delivered at Mansfield August 1, 1741, by 
Solomon Williams, A. M., being frankly 
in her behalf. A portion of this sermon 
has come dowm to us, and offers a curious 
example of the eloquence of the time : "It 
has pleased God," says the worthy minis- 
ter, " to incline her, the last summer and 
now again of her own accord, to make a 
visit to her friends ; and this seems to en- 
courage us to hope that He designs to 
answer the many prayers which have been 
put up for her." 

But in spite of these many prayers, and 
in spite, too, of the fact that the General 
Court of Massachusetts granted Eunice and 
her family a piece of land on condition that 
they would remain in 'New England, she 
refused on the ground that it would en- 
danger her soul. She lived and died in 
206 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOETKEES 

savage life, though nominally a convert 
to Eomanism. Out of her singular fate 
has grown another romance, the marvel of 
later times. Eor from her descended Rev- 
erend Eleazer Williams, missionary to the 
Indians at Green Bay, Wisconsin, who was 
in 1851 visited by the Due de Joinville, 
and told that he was that Dauphin (son of 
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette), who, 
according to history, died in prison June 
9, 1795. In spite of the fact that the 
evidence of this little prince's death was 
as strong as any which can be found in 
history in relation to the death of Louis, 
his father, or of Marie Antoinette, his 
mother, the strange story — first pub- 
lished in Putnam's Magazine for Eebru- 
ary, 1853 — gained general credence, even 
Mr. Williams himself coming gradually to 
believe it. As a matter of fact, however, 
there was proved to be a discrepancy of 

207 



OLD TirEW E]srGLAlSJ"D EOOFTEEES 

eight years between the dates of Williams's 
and the Dauphin's birth, and nearly every 
part of the clergyman's life was found to 
have been spent in quite a commonplace 
way. For as a boy, Eleazer Williams 
lived with Reverend Mr. Ely, on the Con- 
necticut River, and his kinsman. Doctor 
Williams, of Deerfield, at once asserted 
that he remembered him very well at all 
stages of his boyhood. 

Governor Charles K. Williams, of Ver- 
mont, writing from Rutland under date 
February 26, 1853, said of the Reverend 
Eleazer and his " claims " to the throne of 
France, " I never had any doubt that Will- 
iams was of Indian extraction, and a de- 
scendant of Eunice Williams. His father 
and mother were both of them at my 
father's house, although I cannot ascertain 
definitely the year. I consider the whole 
story a humbug, and believe that it will 
208 



OLD ^TEW E:NrGLA^^D EOOFTREES 

be exploded in the course of a few months." 
As a matter of fact, the story has been 
exploded, — though the features of the 
Reverend Eleazer Williams, when in the 
full flush of manhood, certainly bore a 
jemarkable resemblance to those of the 
!French kings from whom his descent was 
claimed. His mixed blood might account 
for this, however. Williams's paternal 
grandfather was an English physician, — 
not of the Deerfield family at all, — and 
his grandmother the daughter of Eunice 
Williams and her redskin mate. His 
father was Thomas Williams, captain in 
the British service during the American 
Revolution, and his mother a Erench- 
woman. Thus the Reverend Eleazer was 
part English, part Yankee, part Indian, 
and part Erench, a combination sufficiently 
complex to account, perhaps, even for an 
unmistakably Bourbon chin. 

209 



:new e:n'Gla'N'D's first "club 

WOMAN " 

M WEN" to-day, in this emancipated 
#» . twentieth century, women minis- 
ters and " female preachers " are 
not infrequently held up to derision by 
those who delight to sit in the seat of the 
scornful. Trials for heresy are likewise 
still common. It is not at all strange, 
therefore, that Mistress Ann Hutchinson 
should, in 1636, have been driven out of 
Boston as an enemy dangerous to public 
order, her specific offence being that she 
maintained in her own house that a mere 
profession of faith could not evidence sal- 
210 



OLD :n^ew e:n^gla]v[d eooftrees 

vation, unless the Spirit first revealed itself 
from within. 

Mrs. Hutchinson's maiden name was 
Ann Marbury, and she was the daughter of 
a scholar and a theologian — one Erancis 
Marbury — who was first a minister of 
Lincolnshire and afterward of London. 
Naturally, much of the girl's as well as 
the greater part of the woman's life was 
passed in the society of ministers — men 
whom she soon learned to esteem more for 
what they knew than for what they 
preached. Theology, indeed, was the at- 
mosphere in which she lived and moved 
and had her being. Intellectually, she was 
an enthusiast, morally an agitator, a clever 
leader, whom Winthrop very aptly de- 
scribed as a " woman of ready wit and 
bold spirit." 

While still young, this exceptionally 
gifted woman married William Hutchin- 

211 



OLD ISTEW EA^GLAND ROOFTREES 

son, a country gentleman of good character 
and estate, whose home was also in Lin- 
colnshire. Winthrop has nothing but 
words of contempt for Mrs. Hutchinson's 
husband, but there is little doubt that a 
sincere attachment existed between the 
married pair, and that Hutchinson was 
a man of sterling character and worth, 
even though he was intellectually the infe- 
rior of his remarkable wife. In their Lin- 
colnshire home the Hutchinsons had been 
parishioners of the Reverend John Cotton, 
and regular attendants at that celebrated 
divine's church in Boston, England. To 
him, her pastor, Mrs. Hutchinson was 
deeply attached. And when the minister 
fled to E'ew England in order to escape 
from the tyranny of the bishops, the Hutch- 
insons also decided to come to America, 
and presently the whole family did so. 
Mrs. Hutchinson's daughter, who had mar- 
212 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

ried the Reverend John Wriglit Wheel- 
wright — another Lincolnshire minister 
who had suffered at the hands of Arch- 
bishop Laud — canie with her mother. 
Besides the daughter, there were three 
grown sons in the family at the time Mrs. 
Hutchinson landed in the Boston she was 
afterward to rend with religious dissension. 
So it was no young, sentimental, unbal- 
anced girl, but a middle-aged, matured, 
and experienced woman of the world who, 
in the autumn of 1634, took sail for New 
England. During the voyage it was learned 
that Mrs. Hutchinson came primed for 
religious controversy. With some Puritan 
ministers who were on the same vessel she 
discussed eagerly abstruse theological ques- 
tions, and she hinted in no uncertain way 
that when they should arrive in New Eng- 
land they might expect to hear more from 
her. Clearly, she regarded herself as one 

213 



OLD :n^ew englai^^d kooftkees 

with a mission. In unmistakable terms she 
avowed her belief that direct revelations 
are made to the elect, and asserted that 
nothing of importance had ever happened 
to her which had not been revealed to her 
beforehand. 

Upon their arrival in Boston, the Hutch- 
insons settled down in a house on the site 
of the present Old Corner Book Store, the 
head of the family made arrangements to 
enter upon his business affairs, and in due 
time both husband and wife made their 
application to be received as members of 
the church. This step was indispensable 
to admit the pair into Christian fellowship 
and to allow to Mr. Hutchinson the privi- 
leges of a citizen. He came through the 
questioning more easily than did his wife, 
for, in consequence of the reports already 
spread concerning her extravagant opin- 
ions, Mrs. Hutchinson was subjected to a 
214 



OLD NEW ENGLAI^D ROOFTKEES 

most searching examination. Finally, 
however, she, too, passed through the or- 
deal safely, the examining ministers, one 
of whom was her old and beloved pastor, 
Mr. Cotton, declaring themselves satisfied 
with her answers. So, in l^ovember, we 
find her a " member in good standing '' of 
the Boston church. 

From this time forward Mrs. Hutchin- 
son was a person of great importance in 
Boston. Sir Harry Vane, then governor of 
the colony and the idol of the people, was 
pleased, with Mr. Cotton, to take much 
notice of the gifted newcomer, and their 
example was followed by the leading and 
influential people of the town, who treated 
her with much consideration and respect, 
and were quick to recognise her intellec- 
tuality as far superior to that of most mem- 
bers of her sex. Mrs. Hutchinson soon 
came, indeed, to be that very remarkable 

215 



OLD NEW EN'GLA:N'D eoofteees 

thing — a prophet honoured in her own 
community. Adopting an established cus- 
tom of the town, she held in her own home 
two weekly meetings — one for men and 
women and one exclusively for women — 
at which she was the oracle. And all these 
meetings were very generously attended. 

Mrs. Hutchinson seems to have been 
New England's first clubwoman. Never 
before had women come together for inde- 
pendent thought and action. To be sure, 
nothing more lively than the sermon 
preached the Sunday before was ever dis- 
cussed at these gatherings, but the talk was 
always pithy and bright, the leader's wit 
was always ready, and soon the house at the 
comer of what is now School Street came 
to be widely celebrated as the centre of 
an influence so strong and far-reaching 
as to make the very ministers jealous and 
fearful. At first, to be sure, the parsons 
216 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

themselves went to the meetings. Cotton, 
Vane, Wheelwright, and Coddington, com- 
pletely embraced the leader's views, and 
the result upon Winthrop of attendance 
at these conferences was to send that official 
home to his closet, wrestling with himself, 
yet more than half persuaded. 

Hawthorne's genius has conjured up the 
scene at Boston's first " parlour talks," so 
that we too may attend and be one among 
the '^ crowd of hooded women and men in 
steeple hats and close-cropped hair . . . 
assembled at the door and open windows 
of a house newly-built. An earnest ex- 
pression glows in every face . . . and 
some press inward as if the bread of life 
were to be dealt forth, and they feared to 
lose their share." 

In plain English Ann Hutchinson's 
doctrines were these : " She held and advo- 
cated as the highest truth," writes Mr. 

21T 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

Drake, ^' that a person could be justified 
only by an actual and manifest revelation 
of the Spirit to him personally. There 
could be no other evidence of grace. She 
repudiated a doctrine of works, and she de- 
nied that holiness of living alone could be 
received as evidence of regeneration, since 
hypocrites might live outwardly as pure 
lives as the saints do. The Puritan 
churches held that sanctification by the 
will was evidence of justification.'' In ad- 
vancing these views, Mrs. Hutchinson's 
pronounced personal magnetism stood her 
in good stead. She made many converts, 
and, believing herself inspired to do a cer- 
tain work, and emboldened by the increas- 
ing number of her followers, she soon 
became unwisely and unpleasantly aggres- 
sive in her criticisms of those ministers 
who preached a covenant of works. She 
seems to have been led into speaking her 
218 



OLD [NTEW E^GLAiYD EOOFTREES 

mind as to doctrines and persons more 
freely than was consistent with prudence 
and moderation, because she was altogether 
unsuspicious that what was being said in 
the privacy of her own house was being 
carefully treasured up against her. So she 
constantly added fuel to the flame, which 
was soon to burst forth to her undoing. 

She was accused of fostering sedition 
in the church, and was then confronted 
with charges relative to the meetings of 
women held at her house. This she suc- 
cessfully parried. 

It looked indeed as if she would surely 
be acquitted, when by an impassioned dis- 
course upon special revelations that had 
come to her, and an assertion that God 
would miraculously protect her whatever 
the court might decree, she impugned the 
position of her judges and roused keen 
resentment. Because of this it was that 

219 



OLD NEW Ei^GLAIS^D EOOFTKEES 

she was banished " as unfit for our so- 
ciety." In the colony records of Massachu- 
setts the sentence pronounced reads as 
follows : " Mrs. Hutchinson (the wife of 
Mr. William Hutchinson) being convented 
for traducing the ministers and their min- 
istry in this country, shee declared volun- 
tarily her revelations for her ground, 
and that shee should bee delivred and the 
Court ruined with their posterity; and 
thereupon was banished, and the mean- 
while she was committed to Mr. Joseph 
Weld untill the Court shall dispose of her." 
Mrs. Hutchinson passed next winter ac- 
cordingly under the watch and ward of 
Thomas Weld, in the house of his brother 
Joseph, near what is now Eustis Street, 
Roxbury. She was there until March, 
when, returning to Boston for further 
trial, she was utterly cast out, even John 

220 



OLD ISTEW ETsraLA:^rD EOOFTKEES 

Cotton, who had been her friend, turning 
against her. 

Mr. Cotton did not present an heroic 
figure in this trial. Had he chosen, he 
might have turned the drift of public 
opinion in Mrs. Hutchinson's favour, but 
he was either too weak or too politic to 
withstand the pressure brought to bear 
upon him, and he gave a qualified adhesion 
to the proceedings. Winthrop did not 
hesitate to use severe measures, and in the 
course of the struggle Vane, who deeply 
admired the Boston prophetess, left the 
country in disgust. Mrs. Hutchinson was 
arraigned at the bar as if she had been a 
criminal of the most dangerous kind. Win- 
throp, who presided, catechised her merci- 
lessly, and all endeavoured to extort from 
her some damaging admission. But in this 
they were unsuccessful. " Mrs. Hutchin- 
son can tell when to speak and when to 

221 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOETREES 

hold her tongue/' commented the governor, 
in describing the court proceedings. Yet 
when all is said, the " trial " was but a 
mockery, and those who read the proceed- 
ings as preserved in the " History of 
Massachusetts Under the Colony and Prov- 
ince," written by Governor Hutchinson, 
a descendant of our heroine, will be quick 
to condemn the judgment there pro- 
nounced by a court which expounded 
theology instead of law against a woman 
who, as Coddington truly said, " had 
broken no law, either of God or of man." 
Banishment was the sentence pro- 
nounced, and after the church which had 
so lately caressed and courted Mrs. Hutch- 
inson had in its turn visited upon her the 
verdict of excommunication, her husband 
sold all his property and removed with his 
family to the island of Aquidneck, as did 
also many others whose opinions had 
222 



OLD :NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

brought them under the censure of the 
governing powers. In this connection it 
is worth noting that the head of the house 
of Hutchinson stood right valiantly by his 
persecuted wife, and when a committee of 
the Boston church went in due time to 
Khode Island for the purpose of bringing 
back into the fold the sheep which they ad- 
judged lost, Mr. Hutchinson told them 
bluntly that, far from being of their 
opinion, he accounted his wife '^ a dear 
saint and servant of God.'' 

The rest of Mrs. Hutchinson's story is 
soon told. Upon the death of her husband, 
which occurred five years after the banish- 
ment, she went with her family into the 
Dutch territory of New Netherlands, set- 
tling near what is now New Rochelle. And 
scarcely had she become established in this 
place when her house was suddenly as- 
saulted by hostile Indians, who, in their 

223 



OLD NEW EXGLAOT3 ROOETREES 

revengeful fury, murdered the whole fam- 
ily, excepting only one daughter, who was 
carried away into captivity. Thus in the 
tragedy of an Indian massacre was 
quenched the light of the most remark- 
able intellect Boston has ever made historic 
by misunderstanding. 

Hawthorne, in writing in his early man- 
hood of Mrs. Hutchinson (" Biographical 
Sketches "), humourously remarked, Seer 
that he was : " There are portentous indi- 
cations, changes gradually taking place in 
the habits and feelings of the gentler sex, 
which seem to threaten our posterity with 
many of those public women whereof one 
was a burden too grievous for our fathers." 

Fortunately, we of to-day have learned 
to take our clubwomen less tragically than 
Wintbrop was able to do. 



224 



IN THE REIGN OF THE WITCHES 

^^NE of the most interesting of the 
\m phenomena to be noted by the stu- 
dent of historical houses is the 
tenacity of tradition. People may be told 
again and again that a story attributed to 
a certain site has been proven untrue, but 
they still look with veneration on a place 
which has been hallowed many years, and 
refuse to give up any alluring name by 
which they have known it. A notable 
example of this is offered by what is uni- 
versally called the Old Witch House, sit- 
uated at the comer of Essex and North 
Streets, Salem. A dark, scowling build- 
ing, set far enough back from the street 

225 



OLD NEW ET^GLAND KOOETREES 

for a modern drugstore to stand in front of 
it, the house itself is certainly sufficiently 
sinister in appearance to warrant its name, 
even though one is assured by authorities 
that no witch was ever known to have lived 
there. Its sole connection with witch- 
craft, history tells us, is that some of the 
preliminary examinations of witches took 
place here, the house being at the time the 
residence of Justice Jonathan Corwin. 
Yet it is this house that has absorbed the 
interest of historical pilgrims to Salem 
through many years, just because it looks 
like a witch-house, and somebody once 
made a muddled statement by which it 
came to be so regarded. 

This house is the oldest standing in 
Salem or its vicinity, having been built 
before 1635. And it really has a claim to 
fame as the Roger Williams house, for it 
was here that the great " Teacher '' lived 
226 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETREES 

during his troubled settlement in Salem. 
The people of Salem, it will be remem- 
bered, persistently sought Williams as 
their spiritual pastor and master until the 
General Court at Boston unseated the 
Salem deputies for the acts of their con- 
stituents in retaining a man of whom they 
disapproved, and the magistrates sent 
a vessel to Salem to remove Mr. Will- 
iams to England. The minister eluded his 
persecutors by fleeing through the wintry 
snows into the wilderness, to become the 
founder of the State of Ehode Island. 

Mr. Williams was a close friend and 
confidential adviser of Governor Endicott, 
and those who were alarmed at the govern- 
or's impetuosity in cutting the cross from 
the king's colours, attributed the act to 
his [Williams's] influence. In taking his 
departure from the old house of the pic- 
ture to make his way to freedom^, Williams 

227 



OLD KEW E:N"GLA]S^D eooftrees 

had no guide save a pocket compass, which 
his descendants still exhibit, and no reli- 
ance but the friendly disposition of the 
Indians toward him. 

But it is of the witchcraft delusion with 
which the house of our picture is connected 
rather than with Williams and his story, 
that I wish now to speak. Jonathan Cor- 
win, or Curwin, who was the house's link 
to witchcraft, was made a councillor under 
the new charter granted Massachusetts by 
King William in 1692, and was, as has 
been said, one of the justices before whom 
the preliminary witch examinations were 
held. He it was who officiated at the trial 
of Rebecca Nourse, of Danvers, hanged as 
a witch July 19, 1692, as well as at many 
other less remarkable and less revolting 
cases. 

Rebecca ^N'ourse, aged and infirm and 
universally beloved by her neighbours, was 
228 



OLD JSTEW EI^GLA^D EOOFTEEES 

accused of being a witch — why, one is 
unable to find out. The jury was con- 
vinced of her innocence, and brought in a 
verdict of " not guilty," but the court sent 
them out again with instructions to find 
her guilty. This they did, and she was 
executed. The tradition is that her sons 
disinterred her body by stealth from the 
foot of the gallows where it had been 
thrown, and brought it to the old home- 
stead, now still standing in Danvers, laying 
it reverently, and with many tears, in the 
little family burying ground near by. 

The majority of the persons condemned 
in Salem were either old or weak-witted, 
victims who in their testimony condemned 
tliemselves, or seemed to the jury to do 
so. Tituba, the Indian slave, is an example 
of this. She Avas tried in March, 1692, 
by the Justice Corwin of the big, dark 
house. She confessed that under threats 

229 



OLD NEW E:NrGLAND EOOETREES 

from Satan, who had most often appeared 
to her as a man in black, accompanied 
by a yellow bird, she had tortured the 
girls who appeared against her. She 
named accomplices, and was condemned 
to imprisonment. After a few months 
she was sold to pay the expenses of 
her lodging in jail, and is lost to his- 
tory. But this was by no means the end 
of the matter. The " afflicted children " 
in Salem who had made trouble be- 
fore now began to accuse men and women 
of unimpeachable character. Within a 
few months several hundred people were 
arrested and thrown into jails. As Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson, the historian of the 
time, points out, the only way to prevent 
an accusation was to become an accuser 
oneself. The state of affairs was indeed 
analogous to that which obtained in France 
a century later, when, during the Reign of 
280 



OLD JS^EW EN^GLAND EOOFTREES 

Terror, men of property and position lived 
in the hourly fear of being regarded as 
" a suspect," and frequently threw suspi- 
cion on their neighbours the better to re- 
tain their own heads. 

We of to-day cannot understand the 
madness that inspired such cruelty. But 
in the light of Michelet's theory, — that in 
the oppression and dearth of every kind 
of ideal interest in rural populations 
some safety-valve had to be found, and 
that there were real organised secret meet- 
ings, witches' Sabbaths, to supply this need 
of sensation, — the thing is less difficult 
to comprehend. The religious hysteria 
that resulted in the banishment of Mrs. 
Hutchinson was but another phase of the 
same thing. And the degeneration to be 
noted to-day in the remote hill-towns of 
'New England is likewise attributable to 
Michelet's " dearth of ideal interest." 

231 



OLD NEW EI^GLAND KOOFTREES 

The thing once started, it grew, of 
course, by what it fed upon. Professor 
William James, Harvard's distinguished 
psychologist, has traced to torture the so- 
called " confessions " on which the evil 
principally throve. A person, he says, 
was suddenly found to be suffering from 
what we to-day should call hysteria, per- 
haps, but what in those days was called 
a witch disease. A witch then had to be 
found to account for the disease ; a scape- 
goat must of necessity be brought forward. 
Some poor old woman was thereupon 
picked out and subjected to atrocious tor- 
ture. If she " confessed," the torture 
ceased. I^aturally she very often ^^ con- 
fessed,'' thus implicating others and 
damning herself. IN'egative suggestion this 
modern psychologist likewise offers as 
light upon witchcraft. The witches sel- 
dom cried, no matter what their anguish 
232 



OLD ^TEW ENGLAIsTD KOOFTREES 

of mind might be. The inquisitors used 
to say to them then, '' If you're not a 
witch, cry, let us see your tears. There, 
there ! you can't cry ! That proves you're 
a witch ! " 

Moreover, that was an age when every- 
body read the Bible, and believed in its 
verbal inspiration. And there in Exodus 
(22:18), is the plain command, "Thou 
shalt not suffer a witch to live." Cotton 
Mather, the distinguished young divine, 
had published a work affirming his belief 
in witchcraft, and detailing his study of 
some bewitched children in Charlestown, 
one of whom he had taken into his own 
family, the better to observe the case. 
The king believed in it, and Queen Anne, 
to whose name we usually prefix the adjec- 
tive " good," wrote to Governor Phips a 
letter which shows that she admitted 
witchcraft as a thing unquestioned. 

238 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

It is in connection with the witchcraft 
delusion in Salem that we get the one 
instance in New England of the old Eng- 
lish penalty for contumacy, that of a vic- 
tim's being pressed to death. Giles Corey, 
who believed in witchcraft and was instru- 
mental in the conviction of his wife, so 
suffered, partly to atone for his early 
cowardice and partly to save his property 
for his children. This latter thing he 
could not have done if he had been con- 
victed of witchcraft, so after pleading 
^' not guilty," he remained mute, refusing 
to add the necessary technical words that he 
would be tried " by God and his country." 

The arrest of Mrs. Corey, we learn, fol- 
lowed closely on the heels of that of Tituba 
and her companions. The accused was a 
woman of sixty, and the third wife of 
Corey. She seems to have been a person of 
unusual strength of character, and from 
234 



OLD NEW ENGLAI^D ROOFTKEES 

the first denounced the witchcraft excite- 
ment, trying to persuade her husband, who 
believed all the monstrous stories then cur- 
rent, not to attend the hearings or in any 
way countenance the proceedings. Per- 
haps it was this well-known attitude of hers 
that directed suspicion to her. 

At her trial the usual performance was 
enacted. The '^ afflicted girls '' fell on the 
floor, uttered piercing shrieks, and cried 
out upon their victim. " There is a man 
whispering in her ear ! " one of them sud- 
denly exclaimed. " What does he say to 
you ? " the judge demanded of Martha 
Corey, accepting at once the '' spectral 
evidence." " We must not believe all these 
distracted children say," was her sensible 
answer. But good sense was not much 
regarded at witch trials, and she was con- 
victed and not long afterward executed. 
Her husband's evidence, which went 

235 



OLD NEW ENGLxiTs^D ROOFTREES 

strongly against her, is here given as a 
good example of much of the testimony 
by which the nineteen Salem victims of 
the delusion were sent to Gallows Hill. 

" One evening I was sitting by the fire 
when my wife asked me to go to bed. I 
told her that I would go to prayer, and 
when I went to prayer I could not utter 
my desires with any sense, nor open my 
mouth to speak. After a little space I 
did according to my measure attend the 
duty. Some time last week I fetched an 
ox well out of the woods about noon, and 
he laying down in the yard, I went to 
raise him to yoke him, but he could not 
rise, but dragged his hinder parts as if 
he had been hip shot, but after did rise. 
I had a cat some time last week strongly 
taken on the sudden, and did make me 
think she would have died presently. My 
wife bid me knock her in the head, but 
236 



OLD ISTEW EJsTGLAJSrD KOOFTREES 

I did not, and since she is well. My wife 
hath been wont to sit up after I went to 
bed, and I have perceived her to kneel down 
as if she were at prayer, but heard 
nothing." 

Incredible as it seems to-day, this was 
accepted as " evidence " of Mrs. Corey's 
bewitchment. Then, as so often happened, 
Giles Corey, the accuser, was soon himself 
accused. He was arrested, taken from his 
mill, and brought before the judges of the 
special court appointed by Governor 
Phips to hear the witch trials in Salem. 
Again the girls went through their per- 
formance, again there was an endeavour 
to extort a confession. But this time 
Corey acted the part of a man. He had 
had leisure for reflection since he had tes- 
tified against his wife, and he was now as 
sure that she was guiltless as that he him- 
self was. Bitter, indeed, must have been 

237 



OLD NEW EJSTGLAND KOOFTEEES 

the realisation that he had helped convict 
her. But he atoned, as has been said, to 
her and to his children by subjecting him- 
self to veritable martyrdom. Though an 
old man whose hair was whitened with the 
snows of eighty winters, he " was laid on 
his back, a board placed on his body with as 
great a weight upon it as he could endure, 
while his sole diet consisted of a few 
morsels of bread one day, and a draught 
of water the alternate day until death put 
an end to his sufferings." Rightly must 
this mode of torture have been named 
peine forte et dure. On Gallows Hill 
three days later occurred the execution of 
eight persons, the last so to suffer in the 
Colony. ^Nineteen people in all were 
hanged, and one was pressed to death in 
Salem, but there is absolutely no foundor 
tion for the statement that some were 
burned. 

238 



OLD N^EW EE^GLAND ROOFTKEES 

The revulsion that followed the cessa- 
tion of the delusion was as marked as was 
the precipitation that characterised the 
proceedings. Many of the clergy con- 
cerned in the trials offered abject apologies, 
and Judge Sewall, noblest of all the civil 
and ecclesiastical authorities implicated in 
the madness, stood up on Fast Day before 
a great congregation in the South Church, 
Boston, acknowledged his grievous error 
in accepting " spectral evidence," and to 
the end of his life did penance yearly in 
the same meeting-house for his part in the 
transactions. 

'Not inappropriately the gloomy old 
house in which the fanatical Corwin had 
his home is to-day given over to a dealer 
in antique furniture. Visitors are freely 
admitted upon application, and very many 
in the course of the year go inside to feast 
their eyes on the ancient wainscoting and 

239 



OLD NEW ENGLAI^D EOOFTKEES 

timbers. The front door and the overhang- 
ing roof are just as in the time of the 
witches, and from a recessed area at the 
back, narrow casements and excrescent 
stairways are still to be seen. The original 
house had, however, peaked gables, with 
pineapples carved in wood surmounting its 
latticed windows and colossal chimneys 
that placed it unmistakably in the age 
of ruffs, Spanish cloaks, and long rapiers. 



240 



LADY WENTWOETH OF THE HALL 

X^N one of those pleasant long even- 
\Jf ings, when the group of friends that 
Longfellow represents in his ^' Tales 
of the Wayside Inn " had gathered in the 
twilight about the cheery open fire of the 
house at Sudbury to tell each other tales 
of long ago, we hear best the story of 
Martha Hilton. We seem to catch the 
poet's voice as he says after the legend from 
the Baltic has been alluringly related by 
the Musician : 

« These tales you tell are, one and all, 
Of the Old World, 

Flowers gathered from a crumbling wall, 
Dead leaves that rustle as they fall ; 
Let me present you in their stead 
Something of our New England earth ; 
A tale which, though of no great worth. 
Has still this merit, that it yields 

241 



OLD :NrEW EIsTGLAISTD KOOFTKEES 

A certain freshness of the fields, 

A sweetness as of home-made bread." 

And then, as the others leaned back to 
listen, there followed the beautiful ballad 
which celebrates the fashion in which 
Martha Hilton, a kitchen maid, became 
" Lady Wentworth of the Hall.'' 

The old Wentworth mansion, where, as 
a beautiful girl, Martha came, served, and 
conquered all who knew her, and even once 
received as her guest the Father of his 
Country, is still in an admirably preserved 
state, and the Wayside Inn, rechristened 
the Eed Horse Tavern, still entertains glad 
guests. 

This inn was built about 1686, and for 
almost a century and a half from 1714 it 
was kept as a public house by generation 
after generation of Howes, the last of 
the name at the inn being Lyman Howe, 
who served guests of the house from 1831 
242 



OLD Ts^EW E^GLAXD EOOFTKEES 

to about 1860, and was the good friend and 
comrade of the brilliant group of men 
Longfellow has poetically immortalised in 
the " Tales." The modern successor of 
Staver's Inn, or the " Earl of Halifax," in 
the doorway of which Longfellow's worthy 
dame once said, ^^ as plain as day : " 

" Oh, Martha Hilton ! Fie ! how dare you go 
About the town half dressed and looking sol " 

is also standing, and has recently been 
decorated by a memorial tablet 

In Portsmouth Martha Hilton is well 
remembered, thanks to Longfellow and 
tradition, as a slender girl who, barefooted, 
ragged, with neglected hair, bore from the 
well 

" A pail of water dripping through the street, 
And bathing as she went her naked feet." 

l^or do the worthy people of Portsmouth 
fail to recall the other actor in this mem- 

243 



OLD :N"EW E]SrGLA:N'D KOOFTEEES 

orable drama, upon which the Earl of 
Halifax once benignly smiled: 



« A portly person, with three-cornered hat, 
A crimson velvet coat, head high in air. 
Gold-headed cane and nicely powdered hair, 
And diamond buckles sparkling at his knees, 
Dignified, stately, florid, much at ease. 
For this was Governor Wentworth, driving down 
To Little Harbour, just beyond the town. 
Where his Great House stood, looking out to sea, 
A goodly place, where it was good to be." 



There are even those who can perfectly 
recollect when the house was very venerable 
in appearance, and when in its rooms were 
to be seen the old spinet, the Strafford por- 
trait, and many other things delightful to 
the antiquary. Longfellow's description 
of this ancient domicile is particularly 
beautiful : 

<< It was a pleasant mansion, an abode 
Near and yet hidden from the great highroad, 
244 



OLD NEW EI^GLAKD ROOFTREES 

Sequestered among trees, a noble pile, 
Baronial and Colonial in its style ; 
Gables and dormer windows everywhere — 
Pandalan pipes, on which all winds that blew 
Made mournful music the whole winter through. 
Within, unwonted splendours met the eye, 
Panels, and floors of oak, and tapestry ; 
Carved chimneypieces, where, on brazen dogs, 
Revelled and roared the Christmas fire of logs. 
Doors opening into darkness unawares, 
Mysterious passages and flights of stairs ; 
And on the walls, in heavy-gilded frames. 
The ancestral Wentworths, with old Scripture 

names. 
Such was the mansion where the great man 

dwelt." 

The place thus prettily pictured is at 
the mouth of Sagamore Creek, not more 
than two miles from the town of Ports- 
mouth. The exterior of tlie mansion as it 
looks to-day does not of itself live up to 
one^s preconceived idea of colonial mag- 
nificence. A rambling collection of build- 
ings, seemingly the result of various " L '^ 
expansions, form an inharmonious whole 

245 



OLD :^EW EISTGLA^D ROOFTREES 

which would have made Ruskin quite mad. 
The site is, however, charming, for the 
place commands a view up and down Little 
Harbour, though concealed by an eminence 
from the road. The house is said to have 
originally contained as many as fifty-two 
rooms. If so, it has shrunk in recent 
years. But there is still plenty of elbow 
space, and the cellar is even to-day large 
enough to accommodate a fair-sized troop 
of soldiery. 

As one enters, one notices first the rack 
in which were wont to be deposited the 
muskets of the governor's guard. And it 
requires only a little imagination to pic- 
ture the big rooms as they were in the 
old days, with the portrait of Strafford 
dictating to his secretary just before his 
execution, the rare Copley, the green dam- 
ask-covered furniture, and the sedan-chair, 
all exhaling an atmosphere of old-time 
246 



OLD ITEW EIsrGLA:^rD EOOFTEEES 

splendour and luxury. Something of im- 
pressiveness has recently been introduced 
into the interior by the artistic arrange- 
ment of old furniture which the house's 
present owner, Mr. Templeton Coolidge, 
has brought about. But the exterior is 
'^ spick-span '' in modern yellow and white 
paint! 

Yet it was in this very house that 
Martha for seven years served her future 
lord. There, busy with mop and pail — 

" A maid of all work, whether coarse or fine, 
A servant who made service seem divine ! " 

she grew from childhood into the lovely 
woman whom Governor Wentworth wooed 
and won. 

In the March of 1760 it was that the 
host at Little Harbour exclaimed abruptly 
to the good rector of St. John's, who had 
been dining sumptuously at the manor- 
house : 

247 



OLD NEW E:^^GLAND ROOFTKEES 

'' This is my birthday; it shall likewise 
be my wedding-day, and you shall marry 
me ! " ^o wonder the listening guests 
were greatly mystified, as Martha and the 
portly governor were joined " across the 
walnuts and the wine '' by the Reverend 
Arthur Brown, of the Established Church. 

And now, of course, Martha had her 
chariot, from which she could look down 
as disdainfully as did the Earl of Halifax 
on the humble folk who needs must walk. 
The sudden elevation seems, indeed, to 
have gone to my lady's head. For tradi- 
tion says that very shortly after her mar- 
riage Martha dropped her ring and sum- 
moned one of her late kitchen colleagues 
to rescue it from the floor. But the col- 
league had quickly become shortsighted, 
and Martha, dismissing her hastily, picked 
up the circlet herself. 

Before the Reverend Arthur Brown was 
248 



OLD NEW EJSTGLAND ROOFTREES 

gathered to his fathers, he had another 
opportunity to marry the fascinating 
Martha to another Wentworth, a man of 
real soldierly distinction. Her second hus- 
band was redcoated Michael, of England, 
who had been in the battle of Culloden. 

This Colonel Michael Wentworth was 
the " great buck " of his day, and was wont 
to fiddle at Stoodley's far into the morning 
for sheer love of fiddling and revelry. 
Stoodley's has now fallen indeed ! It is 
the brick building marked ^^custom-house," 
and it stands at the corner of Daniel and 
Penhallow Streets. 

To this Lord and Lady Wentworth it 
was that Washington, in 1789, came as a 
guest, " rowed by white-jacketed sailors 
straight to their vine-hung, hospitable 
door." At this time there was a younger 
Martha in the house, one who had grown 
up to play the spinet by the long, low 

249 



OLD NEW ENGLAIS^D ROOFTREES 

windows, and who later joined her fate 
to that of still another Wentworth, with 
whom she passed to France. 

A few years later, in 1795, the " great 
huck " of his time took to a bankrupt's 
grave in ISTew York, forgetting, so the story 
goes, the eternal canon fixed against self- 
slaughter. 

But for all we tell as a legend this story 
of Martha Hilton, and for all her " cap- 
ture '^ of the governor has come down to 
us almost as a myth, it is less than fifty 
years ago that the daughter of the man 
who fiddled at Stoodley's and of the girl 
who went barefooted and ragged through 
the streets of Portsmouth, passed in her 
turn to the Great Beyond- Verily, we in 
America have, after all, only a short his- 
torical perspective. 



250 



AN HISTOEIC TRAGEDY 

X^NE hundred years ago there was com- 
\J initted in Dedham, Massachusetts, 
one of the most famous murders of 
this country, a crime, some description of 
which falls naturally enough into these 
chapters, inasmuch as the person punished 
as the criminal belonged to the illustrious 
Fairbanks family, whose picturesque home- 
stead is widely known as one of the oldest 
houses in IsTew England. 

In the Massachusetts Federalist of 
Saturday, September 12, 1801, we find 
an editorial paragraph which, apart from 
its intrinsic interest, is valuable as an 
example of the great difference between 

251 



OLD ^^EW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

ancient and modern journalistic treatment 
of murder matter. This paragraph reads, 
in the quaint old type of the time : " On 
Thursday last Jason Fairbanks was ex- 
ecuted at Dedham for the murder of Miss 
Elizabeth Eales. He was taken from the 
gaol in this town at eight o'clock, by the 
sheriff of this county, and delivered to the 
sheriff of E'orfolk County at the boundary 
line between the two counties. 

" He was in an open coach, and was 
attended therein by the Reverend Doctor 
Thatcher and two peace officers. From the 
county line in Norfolk he was conducted 
to the Dedham gaol by Sheriff Cutler, 
his deputies, and a score of cavalry under 
Captain Davis; and from the gaol in 
Dedham to the place of execution was 
guarded by two companies of cavaby and 
a detachment of volunteer infantry. 

" He mounted the scaffold about a 
262 



OLD IsTEW e:n'gland eooftkees 

quarter before three with his usual steadi- 
ness, and soon after making a signal with 
his handkerchief, was swung off. After 
hanging about twenty-five minutes, his 
body was cut down and buried near the 
gallows. His deportment during his 
journey to and at the place of execution 
was marked with the same apathy and 
indifference which he discovered before 
and since his trial. We do not learn he 
has made any confession of his guilt." 

As a matter of fact, far from making 
a confession of his guilt, Jason Fairbanks 
denied even to the moment of his execution 
that he killed Elizabeth Fales, and his 
family and many other worthy citizens 
of Dedham believed, and kept believing to 
the end of their lives, that the girl com- 
mitted suicide, and that an innocent man 
was punished for a crime he could never 
have perpetrated. 

253 



OLD is^EW engla:n^d roofteees 

In the trial it was shown that this beau- 
tiful girl of eighteen had been for many 
years extremely fond of the young man, 
Fairbanks, and that her love was ardently 
reciprocated. Jason Fairbanks had not 
been allowed, however, to visit the girl 
at the home of her father, though the 
Fales place was only a little more than 
a mile from his own dwelling, the vener- 
able Fairbanks house. None the less, they 
had been in the habit of meeting fre- 
quently, in company with others, en route 
to the weekly singing school, the husking 
bees and the choir practice. Both the 
young people were extremely fond of 
music, and this mutual interest seems to 
have been one of the several ties which 
bound them together. 

In spite, therefore, of the stern decree 
that young Fairbanks should not visit Miss 
Fales at her home, there was considerable 
254 



OLD NEW e:n'glan^d koofteees 

well-improved opportunity for intercourse, 
and, as was afterward shown, the two often 
had long walks together, apart from the 
others of their acquaintance. One of their 
appointments was made for the day of the 
murder, May 18, 1801. Fairbanks was 
to meet his sweetheart, he told a friend, 
in the pasture near her horne^ and it was 
his intention at that time to persuade her 
to run away with him and be married. 
Unfortunately for Fairbanks's case at the 
trial, it was shown that he told this same 
friend that if Elizabeth Fales would not 
run away with him he would do her harm. 
And one other thing which militated 
against the acquittal of the accused youth 
was the fact that, as an inducement to the 
girl to elope with him, Fairbanks showed 
her a forged paper, upon which she ap- 
peared to have declared legally her inten- 
tion to marry him. 

255 



OLD NEW EKGLAISTD ROOFTREES 

One tragic element of the whole affair 
was the fact that Fairbanks had no definite 
work and no assured means of support. 
Young people of good family did not 
marry a hundred years ago without think- 
ing, and thinking to some purpose, of 
what cares and expense the future might 
bring them. The man, if he was an hon- 
ourable man, expected always to have a 
home for his wife, and since Fairbanks 
was an invalid, ^' debilitated in his right 
arm," as the phrasing of the time put it, 
and had never been able to do his part of 
the farm work, he had lived what his stern 
forebears would have called an idle life, 
and consequently utterly lacked the means 
to marry. That he was something of a 
spoiled child also developed at the trial, 
which from the first went against the 
young man because of the testimony of 
the chums to whom he had confided his 
256 



OLD NEW engla:n^d kooftrees 

intention to do Elizabeth Eales an injury 
if she would not go to Wrentham and 
marry him. 

The prisoner's counsel were two very 
clever young lawyers who afterward came 
to be men of great distinction in Massa- 
chusetts — no others, in fact, than Harri- 
son Gray Otis and John Lowell. These 
men advanced very clever arguments to 
show that Elizabeth Eales, maddened by a 
love which seemed unlikely ever to end in 
marriage, had seized from Jason the large 
knife which he was using to mend a quill 
pen as he walked to meet her, and with this 
knife had inflicted upon herself the terri- 
ble wounds, from the effect of which she 
died almost instantaneously. The fact 
that Jason was himself wounded in the 
struggle was ingeniously utilised by the 
defence to show that he had received mur- 
derous blows from her hand, for the very 

257 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOETREES 

reason that he had attempted (unsuccess- 
fully, inasmuch as his right arm was im- 
paired) to wrest the mad girl's murderous 
weapon from her. 

The counsel also made much of the fact 
that, though it was at midday and many 
people were not far off, no screams were 
heard. A vigorous girl like Elizabeth 
Fales would not have submitted easily, 
they held, to any such assault as was 
charged. In the course of the trial a very 
moving description of the sufferings such 
a high-strung, ardent nature as this girFs 
must have undergone, because of her hope- 
less love, was used to show the reasons for 
suicide. And following the habit of the 
times, the lawyers turned their work to 
moral ends by beseeching the parents in 
the crowded court-room to exercise a 
greater vigilance over the social life of 
their young people, and so prevent the 
258 



OLD :N^EW ENGLA:t^D ROOFTEEES 

possibility of their forming any such at- 
tachment as had moved Elizabeth Eales 
to take her own life. 

Yet all this eloquent pleading was in 
vain, for the court found Jason Fairbanks 
guilty of murder and sentenced him to 
be hanged. From the court-room he was 
taken to the Dedham gaol, but on the night 
of the seventeenth of August he was en- 
abled to make his escape through the ojfices 
of a number of men who believed him 
innocent, and for some days he was at 
liberty. At length, however, upon a reward 
of one thousand dollars being offered for 
his apprehension, he was captured near 
l^orthampton, Massachusetts, which town 
he had reached on his journey to Canada. 

The gallows upon which " justice '^ ulti- 
mately asserted itself is said to have been 
constructed of a tree cut from the old 
Fairbanks place. 

259 



OLD N^EW EXGLAXD ROOETEEES 

The Fairbanks house is still standing, 
having been occupied for almost two hun- 
dred and seventy-five years by the same 
family, which is now in the eighth genera- 
tion of the name. The house is surrounded 
by magnificent old elms, and was built by 
Jonathan Fairbanks, who came from 
Sowerby, in the West Eiding of Yorkshire, 
England, in 1633. The cupboards are 
filled with choice china, and even the 
Fairbanks cats, it is said, drink their milk 
out of ancient blue saucers that would drive 
a collector wild with envy. 

The house is now (1902) the home of 
Miss Eebecca Fairbanks, an old lady of sev- 
enty-five years, who will occupy it through- 
out her lifetime, although the place is con- 
trolled by the Fairbanks Chapter of the 
Daughters of the Eevolution, who hold 
their monthly meetings there. 

The way in which this property was 
260 



OLD KEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

acquired by the organisation named is in- 
teresting recent history. Miss Rebecca 
Fairbanks was obliged in 1895 to sell the 
house to John Crowley, a real estate dealer 
in Dedham. On April 3, 1897, Mrs. Nel- 
son V. Titus, asked through the medium of 
the press for four thousand, ^ve hundred 
dollars, necessary to purchase the house and 
keep it as a historical relic. Almost imme- 
diately Mrs. J. Amory Codman and Miss 
Martha Codman sent a check for the sum 
desired, and thus performed a double act 
of beneficence. For it was now possible 
to ensure to Miss Fairbanks a life tenancy 
of the home of her fathers as well as to 
keep for all time this picturesque place as 
an example of early American architecture. 
Hundreds of visitors now go every sum- 
mer to see the interesting old house, which 
stands nestling cosily in a grassy dell just 
at the corner of East Street and the short 

261 



OLD I^EW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

" Willow Road " across the meadows that 
lie between East Street and Dedham. This 
road is a " modern convenience/' and its 
construction was severely frowned upon by 
the three old ladies who twenty years ago 
lived together in the family homestead. 
And though it made the road to the village 
shorter by half than the old w^ay, this had 
no weight with the inflexible women who 
had inherited from their long line of an- 
cestors marked decision and firmness of 
character. They protested against the 
building of the road, and when it was built 
in spite of their protests they declared they 
would not use it, and kept their word. 
Constant attendants of the old Congrega- 
tional church in Dedham, they went per- 
sistently by the longest way round rather 
than tolerate the road to which they had 
objected. 

That their neighbours called them " set 
262 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

in their ways " goes, of course, without 
saying, but the women of the Fairbanks 
family have ever been rigidly conscien- 
tious, and the men a bit obstinate. For, 
much as one would like to think the con- 
trary true, one seems forced to believe 
that it was obstinacy rather than innocency 
which made Jason Fairbanks protest till 
the hour of his death that he was being 
unjustly punished. 



263 



INVENTOK MOKSE'S UXFUL- 
FILLED AMBITI0:N^ 

^f"^HE first house erected in Charles- 
m town after the destruction of the 

village by fire in 1775 (the coup 
d'etat which immediately followed the 
battle of Bunker Hill, it will be remem- 
bered), is that which is here given as the 
birthplace of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, 
the inventor of the electric telegraph. The 
house is still standing at 203 Main Street, 
and in the front chamber of the second 
story, on the right of the front door of the 
entrance, visitors still pause to render trib- 
ute to the memory of the babe that there 
drew his first breath on April 27, 1791. 
264 



OLD :^rEw e:n'gland kooftkees 

It was, however, quite by accident that 
the house became doubly famous, for it 
was during the building of the parsonage, 
Pastor Morse's proper home, that his little 
son came to gladden his life. Reverend 
Jedediah Morse became minister of the 
First Parish Church on April 30, 1789, 
the very date of Washington's inaugura- 
tion in New York as President of the 
United States, and two weeks later married 
a daughter of Judge Samuel Breese, of 
'New York. Shortly afterward it was de- 
termined to build a parsonage, and during 
the construction of this dwelling Doctor 
Morse accepted the hospitality of Mr. 
Thomas Edes, who then owned the " old- 
est " house. And work on the parsonage 
being delayed beyond expectation, Mrs. 
Morse's little son was bom in the Edes 
house. 

Apropos of the brief residence of Doctor 

265 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTKEES 

Morse in this house comes a quaint letter 
from Reverend Jeremy Belknap, the staid 
old doctor of divinity, and the founder of 
the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
which shows that girls over a hundred 
years ago were quite as much interested 
in young unmarried ministers as nice girls 
ought ever to be. Two or three months 
before the settlement of Mr. Morse in 
Charlestown, Doctor Belknap wrote to his 
friend, Ebenezer Hazard, of New York, 
who was a relative of Judge Breese : 

" You said in one of your late letters 
that probably Charlestown people would 
soon have to build a house for Mr. Morse. 
I let this drop in a conversation with a 
daughter of Mr. Carey, and in a day or 
two it was all over Charlestown, and the 
girls who had been setting their caps for 
him are chagrined. I suppose it would 
be something to Mr. Morse's advantage 
266 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETREES 

in point of bands and handkerchiefs, if this 
report could be contradicted; but if it 
cannot, oh, how heavy will be the disap- 
pointment. When a young clergyman set- 
tles in such a town as Charlestown, there 
is as much looking out for him as there is 
for a thousand-dollar prize in a lottery; 
and though the girls know that but one 
can have him, yet ^ who knows but I may 
be that one ? "' ^ 

Doctor Morse's fame has been a good 
deal obscured by that of his distinguished 
son, but he seems none the less to have been 
a good deal of a man, and it is perhaps no 
wonder that the feminine portion of a 
little place like Charlestown looked for- 
ward with decided interest to his settling 
among them. We can even fancy that 
the girls of the sewing society studied 

1 Drake's "Historic Fields and Mansions of Mid- 
dlesex." Little, Brown & Co., publishers. 

267 



OLD KEW ENGLxiKD ROOFTREES 

geography with ardour when they learned 
who was to be their new minister. For 
geography was Doctor Morse's passion ; he 
was, indeed, the Alexis Erye of his period. 
This interest in geography is said to have 
been so tremendous with the man that once 
being asked by his teacher at a Greek reci- 
tation where a certain verb was found, he 
replied, ^' On the coast of Africa." And 
while he was a tutor at Yale the want of 
geographies there induced him to prepare 
notes for his pupils, to serve as text-books, 
which he eventually printed. 

Young Morse seconded his father's pas- 
sion for geography by one as strongly 
marked for drawing, and the blank margin 
of his Virgil occupied far more of his 
thoughts than the text. The inventor came 
indeed only tardily to discover in which 
direction his real talent lay. All his 
youth he worshipped art and followed (at 
268 



OLD :^EW ENGLAT^D KOOFTEEES 

considerable distance) his beloved mis- 
tress. His penchant for painting, exhibi- 
ted in much the same manner as Allston's, 
his future master, did not meet with the 
same encouragement. 

A caricature (founded upon some fracas 
among the students at Yale), in which 
the faculty were burlesqued, was seized 
during Morse's student days, handed to 
President Dwight, and the author, who 
was no other than our young friend, called 
up. The delinquent received a severe lec- 
ture upon his waste of time, violation of 
college laws, and filial disobedience, with- 
out exhibiting any sign of contrition ; but 
when at length Doctor Dwight said to him, 
^^ Morse, you are no painter ; this is a 
rude attempt, a complete failure," he was 
touched to the quick, and could not keep 
back the tears. 

The canvas, executed by Morse at the 

269 



OLD JSTEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

age of nineteen, of the landing of the Pil- 
grims, which maj be seen at the Charles- 
town City Hall, is certainly not a master- 
piece. Yet the lad was determined to learn 
to paint, and to this end accompanied 
AUston to Europe, where he became a pupil 
of West, and, it is said, also of Copley. 
West had become the foremost painter 
of his time in England when our ambitious 
young artist was presented to him, but from 
the beginning he took a great interest in 
the Charlestown lad, and showed him much 
attention. Once in after years Morse rela- 
ted to a friend this most interesting anec- 
dote of his great master : " I called upon 
Mr. West at his house in Newman Street 
one morning, and in conformity to the 
order given to his servant Kobert always 
to admit Mr. Leslie and myself even if he 
was engaged in his private studies, I was 
shown into his studio. 
270 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

" As I entered a half-length portrait of 
George III. stood before me on an easel, 
and Mr. West was sitting with his back 
toward me copying from it upon canvas. 
My name having been mentioned to him, 
he did not turn, but pointing with the 
pencil he had in his hand to the portrait 
from which he was copying, he said, ^ Do 
you see that picture, Mr. Morse ? ^ 

" ^ Yes, sir,' I said, ' I perceive it is the 
portrait of the king.' 

" ' Well,' said Mr. West, ' the king was 
sitting to me for that portrait when the 
box containing the American Declaration 
of Independence was handed to him.' 

" ^ Indeed,' I answered ; ^ and what ap- 
peared to be the emotions of the king? 
What did he say ? ' 

" ^ His reply,' said Mr. West, ' was char- 
acteristic of the goodness of his heart : " If 
they can be happier under the govern- 

271 



OLD :N'EW EIS^GLAISTD ROOFTREES 

ment they have chosen than under me, I 
shall be happy." ' " ^ 

Morse returned to Boston in the autumn 
of 1815, and there set up a studio. But 
he was not too occupied in painting to 
turn a hand to invention, and we find him 
the next winter touring New Hampshire 
and Vermont trying to sell to towns and vil- 
lages a fire-engine pump he had invented, 
while seeking commissions to paint por- 
traits at fifteen dollars a head. It was that 
winter that he met in Concord, 'New Hamp- 
shire, Miss Lucretia P. Walker, whom he 
married in the autumn of 1818, and whose 
death in February, 1825, just after he 
had successfully fulfilled a liberal com- 
mission to paint General Lafayette, was 
the great blow of his young manhood. 

The IsTational Academy of Design 

1 Beacon Biographies : S. F. B. Morse, by John 
Trowbridge ; Small, Maynard & Co. 

272 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND ROOFTKEES 

Morse helped to found in New York in 
1826, and of this institution he was first 
president. About the same time we find 
him renewing his early interest in elec- 
trical experiments. A few years later he is 
sailing for Europe, there to execute many 
copying commissions. And on his return 
from this stay abroad the idea of the 
telegraph suggested itself to him. 

Of the exact way in which Morse first 
conceived the idea of making electricity the 
means of conveying intelligence, various 
accounts have been given, the one usually 
accepted being that while on board the 
packet-ship Sully, a fellow passenger rela- 
ted some experiments he had witnessed in 
Paris with the electro-magnet, a recital 
which made such an impression upon one 
of his auditors that he walked the deck 
the whole night. Professor Morse's own 
statement was that he gained his knowledge 

273 



OLD XEW e:n^glai^d kooftkees 

of the working of the electro-magnet while 
attending the lectures of Doctor J, Free- 
man Dana, then professor of chemistry in 
the University of 'New York, lectures 
which were delivered before the New York 
Atheneum. 

" I witnessed," says Morse, " the effects 
of the conjunctive wires in the different 
forms described by him in his lectures, 
and exhibited to his audience. The electro- 
magnet was put in action by an intense 
battery ; it was made to sustain the weight 
of its armature, when the conjunctive wire 
was connected with the poles of the battery, 
or the circuit was closed ; and it was made 
to * drop its load ' upon opening the cir- 
cuit." 

Yet after the inventor had made his dis- 
covery he had the greatest difficulty in 
getting a chance to demonstrate its worth. 
Heartsick with despondwicy, and with his 
274 



OLD NEW EN^GLAND ROOFTREES 

means utterly exhausted, he finally applied 
to the Twenty-seventh Congi-ess for aid to 
put his invention to the test of practical 
illustration, and his petition was carried 
through with a majority of only two votes ! 
These two votes to the good were enough, 
however, to save the wonderful discovery, 
perhaps from present obscurity, and with 
the thirty thousand dollars appropriated by 
Congress Morse stretched his first wires 
from Washington to Baltimore — wires, it 
will be noted, because the principle of the 
ground circuit was not then known, and 
only later discovered by accident. So that 
a wire to go and another to return between 
the cities was deemed necessary by Morse 
to complete his first circuit. The first wire 
was of copper. 

The first message, now in the custody of 
the Connecticut Historical Society, was 
dictated by Miss Annie G. Ellsworth, and 

275 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

the words of it were " What hath God 
wrought ? " The telegraph was at first 
regarded with superstitious dread in some 
sections of the country. In a Southern 
State a drought was attributed to its occult 
influences, and the people, infatuated with 
the idea, levelled the wires to the ground. 
And so common was it for the Indians to 
knock off the insulators with their rifles 
in order to gratify their curiosity in regard 
to the " singing cord," that it was at first 
extremely difficult to keep the lines in 
repair along the Pacific Kailway. 

To the man who had been so poor that he 
had had a very great struggle to provide 
bread for his three motherless children, 
came now success. The impecunious artist 
was liberally rewarded for his clever in- 
vention, and in 184Y he married for his 
second wife Miss Sarah E. Griswold, of 
Poughkeepsie, the daughter of his cousin. 
276 



OLD IsTEW EIsTGLAND KOOFTKEES 

She was twenty-five when they were mar- 
ried, and he fifty-six, but tliey lived very 
happily together on the two-hundred acre 
farm he had bought near Poughkeepsie, 
and it was there that he died at the age 
of seventy-two, full of honours as an in- 
ventor, and loving art to the end. 

Even after he became a great man. Pro- 
fessor Morse, it is interesting to learn, 
cherished his fondness for the house in 
which he was born, and one of his last 
visits to Charlestown was on the occasion 
when he took his young daughter to see 
the old place. And that same day, one is 
a bit amused to note, he took her also 
to the old parsonage, then still standing, 
in what is now Harvard Street, between 
the city hall and the church — and there 
pointed out to her with pride some rude 
sketches he had made on the wall of his 
sleeping-room when still a boy. So, though 

277 



OLD NEW engla:n^d kooftrees 

it is as an inventor we remember and 
honour Samuel Finley Breese Morse to- 
day, it was as a painter that he wished 
first, last, and above all to be famous. But 
in the realm of the talents as elsewhere 
man proposes and God disposes. 



278 



WHEEE THE "BEOTHERS AND 
SISTERS'' MET 

Tt TO single house in all Massachusetts 
/ \/ has survived so many of the vicis- 
situdes of fickle fortune and car- 
ried the traditions of a glorious past up 
into the realities of a prosperous and useful 
present more successfully than has Fay 
House, the present home of Radcliffe Col- 
lege, Cambridge. The central portion of 
the Fay House of to-day dates back nearly 
a hundred years, and was built by 
N^athaniel Ireland, a prosperous merchant 
of Boston. It was indeed a mansion to 
make farmer-folk stare when, with its 

279 



OLD ¥EW E]SrGLA:NTD EOOFTKEES 

tower-like bays, running from ground to 
roof, it was, in 1806, erected on the high- 
road to Watertown, the first brick house 
in the vicinity. 

To Mr. Ireland did not come the good 
fortune of living in the fine dwelling his 
ambition had designed. A ship-blacksmith 
by trade, his prospects were ruined by the 
Jefferson Embargo, and he was obliged to 
leave the work of construction on his house 
unfinished and allow the place to pass, 
heavily mortgaged, into the hands of 
others. But the house itself and our story 
concerning it gained by Mr. Ireland's loss, 
for it now became the property of Doctor 
Joseph McKean (a famous Harvard in- 
structor), and the rendezvous of that pro- 
fessor's college associates and of the numer- 
ous friends of his young family. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes was among those who 

280 



OLD IsTEW ElSTGLAl^D KOOFTEEES 

spent many a social evening here with the 
McKeans. 

The next name of importance to be con- 
nected with Fay House was that of 
Edward Everett, who lived here for a time. 
Later Sophia Willard Dana,, granddaugh- 
ter of Chief Justice Dana, our first minis- 
ter to Kussia, kept a boarding and day 
school for young ladies in the house. 
Among her pupils were the sisters of 
James Russell Lowell, Mary Channing, the 
first wife of Colonel Thomas Wentworth 
Higginson, and members of the Higgin- 
son, Parkman, and Tuckerman families. 
Lowell himself, and Edmund Dana, at- 
tended here for a term as a special privi- 
lege. Sophia Dana was married in the 
house, August 22, 1827, by the father of 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, to Mr. George 
Ripley, with whom she afterward took an 
active part in the Brook Farm Colony, of 

281 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTEEES 

which we are to hear again a bit later in 
this series. After Miss Dana's marriage, 
her school was carried on largely by Miss 
Elizabeth McKean — the daughter of the 
Doctor Joseph McKean already referred 
to — a young woman who soon became the 
wife of Doctor Joseph Worcester, the com- 
piler of the dictionary. 

Delightful reminiscences of Pay House 
have been furnished us by Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson, who, as a boy, was often 
in and out of the place, visiting his aunt, 
Mrs. Channing, who lived here with her 
son, William Henry Channing, the well- 
known anti-slavery orator. Here Higgin- 
son, as a youth, used to listen with keenest 
pleasure, to the singing of his cousin, Lucy 
Channing, especially when the song she 
chose was, " The Mistletoe Hung on the 
Castle Wall,'' the story of a bride shut 
up in a chest. " I used firmly to believe," 
282 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

the genial colonel confessed to the Kaclcliffe 
girls, in reviving for them his memories 
of the house, '' that there v^as a bride shut 
up in the walls of this house — and there 
may be to-day, for all I know." 

For fifty years after June, 1835, the 
house was in the possession of Judge P. P. 
Fay's family. The surroundings were still 
country-like. Cambridge Common was as 
yet only a treeless pasture, and the house 
had not been materially changed from its 
original shape and plan. Judge Fay was 
a jolly gentleman of the old school. A 
judge of probate for a dozen years, an 
overseer of Harvard College, and a pillar 
of Christ Church, he was withal fond of 
a well-turned story and a lover of good 
hunting, as well as much given to hospi- 
tality. Miss Maria Denny Fay, whose 
memory is now perpetuated in a Radcliife 
scholarship, was the sixth of Judge Fay^s 

283 



OLD ]^EW EE-GLAXD EOOFTEEES 

seven children, and the one who finally 
became both mistress and owner of the 
estate. A girl of fourteen when her father 
bought the house, she was at the time re- 
ceiving her young-lady education at the 
Convent of St. Ursula, where, in the vine- 
covered, red-brick convent on the summit 
of Charlestown, she learned, under the 
guidance of the nuns, to sing, play the 
piano, the harp, and the guitar, to speak 
French, and read Spanish and Italian. 
But her life on Mt. Benedict was suddenly 
terminated when the convent was burned. 
So she entered earlier than would other- 
wise have been the case upon the varied 
interests of her new and beautiful home. 
Here, in the course of a few years, we find 
her presiding, a gracious and lovely 
maiden, of whom the venerable Colonel 
Higginson has said : " I have never, in 
looking back, felt more grateful to any 
284 



OLD ;N"EW EiS^GLAND KOOFTREES 

one than to this charming girl of twenty, 
who consented to be a neighbour to me, an 
awkward boy of seventeen, to attract me in 
a manner from myself and make me avail- 
able to other people." 

Very happy times were those which the 
young Went worth Higginson, then a col- 
lege boy, living with his mother at 
Vaughan House, was privileged to share 
with Maria Fay and her friends. Who of 
us does not envy him the memory of that 
Christmas party in 1841, when there were 
gathered in Fay House, among others, 
Maria White, Lowell's beautiful fiancee; 
Levi Thaxter, afterward the husband of 
Celia Thaxter ; Leverett Saltonstall, Mary 
Story and William Story, the sculptors? 
And how pleasant it must have been to join 
in the famous charades of that circle of 
talented young people, to partake of re- 
freshments in the quaint dining-room, and 

285 



OLD NEW e:n^gla]^d roofteees 

dance a Virginia reel and galop in the 
beautiful oval parlour which then, as to- 
day, expressed ideally the acme of charm- 
ing hospitality ! What tales this same par- 
lour might relate! How enchantingly it 
might tell, if it could speak, of the graceful 
Maria White, who, seated in the deep win- 
dow, must have made an exquisite picture 
in her white gown, with her beautiful face 
shining in the moonlight while she re- 
peated, in her soft voice, one of her own 
ballads, written for the " Brothers and 
Sisters," as this group of young people 
was called. 

Of a more distinctly academic cast were 
some of the companies later assembled in 
this same room — Judge Story, Doctor 
Beck, President Felton, Professors Pierce, 
Lane, Child, and Lowell, with maybe 
Longfellow, listening to one of his own 
songs, or that strange figure, Professor 
286 



OLD NEW EI^GLAND KOOFTKEES 

Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles, oddly 
ill at ease in his suit of dingy black. In 
his younger days he had been both pirate 
and priest, and he retained, as professor, 
some of his early habits — seldom being 
seated while he talked, and leaning against 
the door, shaking and fumbling his college 
keys as the monks shake their rosaries. 
Mr. Arthur Gilman has related in a charm- 
ing article on Fay House, written for 
the Harvard Graduates Magazine (from 
which, as from Miss Morris's sketch of the 
old place, printed in a recent number of 
the Radcliffe Magazine, many of the inci- 
dents here given are drawn), that Professor 
Sophocles was allowed by Miss Fay to keep 
some hens on the estate, pets which he had 
an odd habit of naming after his friends. 
When, therefore, some accomplishment 
striking and praiseworthy in a hen was 
related in company as peculiar to one or 

287 



OLD ISTEW ENGLAND EOOETEEES 

another of them, the professor innocently 
calling his animals by the name he had 
borrowed, the effect was apt to be start- 
ling. 

During the latter part of Miss Eay's 
long tenancy of this house, she had with 
her her elder sister, the handsome Mrs. 
Greenough, a woman who had been so 
famous a beauty in her youth that, on the 
occasion of her wedding, Harvard students 
thronged the aisles and climbed the pews 
of old Christ Church to see her. The wed- 
ding receptions of Mrs. Greenough's daugh- 
ter and granddaughter were held, too, in 
Fay House. This latter girl was the fas- 
cinating and talented Lily Greenough, who 
was later a favourite at the court of liapo- 
leon and Eugenie, and who, after the death 
of her first husband, Mr. Charles Moulton, 
was married in this house to Monsieur 
De Hegermann Lindencrone, at that time 
288 



OLD NEW ENGLAISTD EOOFTEEES 

Danish Minister to the United States, and 
now minister at Paris. Her daughter, 
Suzanne Moulton, who has left her name 
scratched with a diamond on one of the 
Fay House windows, is now the Countess 
Suzanne Raben-Levetzan of I^ystel, Den- 
mark. 

In connection with the Fays' life in this 
house occurred one thing which will par- 
ticularly send the building down into pos- 
terity, and will link for all time Radcliffe 
and Harvard traditions. For it was in 
the upper corner room, nearest the Wash- 
ington Elm, that Doctor Samuel Oilman, 
Judge Fay's brother-in-law, wrote " Fair 
Harvard," while a giiest in this hospitable 
home, during the second centennial cele- 
bration of the college on the Charles. Rad- 
cliffe girls often seem a bit triumphant as 
they point out to visitors this room and 
its facsimile copy of the famous song. Yet 

289 



OLD NEW E^^GLAND BOOETREES 

thej have plenty of pleasant things of their 
own to remember. 

Just one of these, taken at random from 
among the present writer's own memories 
of pretty happenings at Fay House, will 
serve: During Duse's last tour in this coun- 
try, the famous actress came out one after- 
noon, as many a famous personage does, 
to drink a cup of tea with Mrs. Agassiz 
in the stately old parlour, where Mrs. 
Whitman's famous portrait of the presi- 
dent of Radcliffe College vies in attract- 
iveness with the living reality graciously 
presiding over the Wednesday afternoon 
teacups. As it happened, there was a scant 
attendance at the tea on this day of Duse's 
visit. She had not been expected, and so 
it fell out that some two or three girls who 
could speak French or Italian were priv- 
ileged to do the honours of the occasion 
to the great actress whom they had long 
290 



OLD ]S^EW E^TGLAKD EOOFTKEES 

worshipped from afar. Duse was in one 
of her most charming moods, and she 
listened with the greatest attention to her 
young hostesses' laboured explanations 
concerning the college and its ancient 
home. 

The best of it all, from the enthusiastic 
girl-students' point of view, was, however, 
in the dark-eyed Italienne's mode of say- 
ing farewell. As she entered her carriage 
— to which she had been escorted by this 
little group — she took from her belt a 
beautiful bouquet of roses, camellias, and 
violets. And as the smart coachman 
flicked the impatient horses Avith his whip, 
Duse threw the girls the precious flowers. 
Those who caught a camellia felt, of 
course, especially delighted, for it was as 
the Dame aux Camellias that Duse had 
been winning for weeks the plaudits of ad- 
miring Boston. My own share of the 

291 



OLD l^EW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

largesse consisted of a few fresh, sweet 
violets, which I still have tucked away 
somewhere, together with one of the great 
actress's photographs that bears the date 
of the pleasant afternoon hour passed with 
her in the parlour where the " Brothers 
and Sisters " met» 



292 



THE BEOOK FARMERS 

^^^N'E of the weddings noted in our 
f^ Fay House chapter was that of 
Sophia Dana to George Ripley, an 
event which was celebrated August 22, 
1827, in the stately parlour of the Cam- 
bridge mansion, the ceremony being per- 
formed by the father of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. The time between the date of 
their marriage and the year 1840, when 
Mr. and Mrs. Ripley " discovered " the 
milk-farm in West Roxbury, which was 
afterward to be developed through their 
efforts into the most remarkable socialistic 
experiment America has ever known, 

293 



OLD KEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

represented for the young people joined 
together in what is now the home of Rad- 
cliffe College some dozen years of quiet 
parsonage life in Boston. 

The later years of George Ripley's life 
held for him a series of disappointments 
before which his courage and ideals never 
failed. When the young student left the 
Harvard Divinity School, he was appointed 
minister over a Unitarian parish which 
was gathered for him at the corner of 
Pearl and Purchase Streets, Boston. Here 
his ministrations went faithfully on, but 
inasmuch as his parishioners failed to take 
any deep interest in the social questions 
which seemed to him of most vital concern, 
he sent them, in the October of 1840, a 
letter of resignation, which they duly ac- 
cepted, thus leaving Ripley free to enter 
upon the experiment so dear to him. 

The Ripleys, as has been said, had al- 
294 



OLD NEW ETs^GLAND EOOFTREES 

ready discovered Brook Farm, a pleasant 
place, varied in contour, with pine v^oods 
close at hand, the Charles River within 
easy distance, and plenty of land — 
whether of a sort to produce paying crops 
or not they were later to learn. That win- 
ter Ripley wrote to Emerson: "We pro- 
pose to take a small tract of land, which, 
under skilful husbandry, uniting the gar- 
den and the farm, will be adequate to the 
subsistence of the families ; and to connect 
with this a school or college in which the 
most complete instruction shall be given, 
from the first rudiments to the highest 
culture." Ripley himself assumed the 
responsibility for the management and 
success of the undertaking, and about the 
middle of April, 1841, he took possession 
with his wife and sister and some fifteen 
others, including Hawthorne, of the f arm- 

295 



OLD NEW ENGLA:^rD EOOFTEEES 

house, v/hichj with a large barn, was 
already on the estate. 

The first six months were spent in " get- 
ting started," especially in the matter of 
the school, of which Mrs. Ripley was 
largely in charge, and it was not until 
early fall — September 29 — that the 
Brook Earm Institute of Agriculture and 
Education was organised as a kind of joint 
stock company, not incorporated. 

A seeker after country quiet and beauty 
might easily be as much attracted to-day 
by the undulating acres of Brook Earm 
as were those who sought it sixty years 
ago as a refuge from social discouragement. 
The brook still babbles cheerily as it 
threads its way through the meadows, and 
there are still pleasant pastures and shady 
groves on the large estate. The only one 
of the community buildings which is still 
standing, however, is that now known as 
296 



OLD ISTEW ENGLAND KOOETKEES 

the Martin Luther Orphan Home. This 
house was built at the very start of the 
community life by Mrs. A. G. Alf ord, one 
of the members of the colony. 

The building was in the form of a Mal- 
tese cross with four gables, the central space 
being taken by the staircase. It contained 
only about half a dozen rooms, and proba- 
bly could not have accommodated more 
than that number of residents. It is said 
to have been the prettiest and best fur- 
nished house on the place, but an examina- 
tion of its simple construction will confirm 
the memory of one of its occupants, who re- 
marked that contact with nature was here 
always admirably close and unaffected. 
From the rough dwelling, which resembled 
an inexpensive beach cottage, to out-doors 
was hardly a transition, it is chronicled, 
and at all seasons the external and internal 
temperatures closely corresponded. Until 

297 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

lately the cottage wore its original dark- 
brown colour ; and it is still the best visible 
remnant of the early days, and gives a 
pleasant impression of what the daily life 
of the association must have been. 

Gay and happy indeed were the dwellers 
in this community during the early stages 
of its development. Ripley's theory of the 
wholesomeness of combined manual and 
intellectual work ruled everywhere. He 
himself donned the farmer's blouse, the 
wide straw hat, and the high boots in which 
he has been pictured at Brook Farm ; and 
whether he cleaned stables, milked cows, 
carried vegetables to market, or taught 
philosophy and discussed religion, he was 
unfailinfi^ly cheerful and inspiring. 

Mrs. Ripley was in complete accord with 

her husband on all vital questions, and as 

the chief of the Wash-Room Group worked 

blithely eight or ten hours a day. Whether 

298 



OLD NEW EA^GLAND ROOFTREES 

this devotion to her husband's ideals grew 
out of her love for him, or whether she 
was really persuaded of the truth of his 
theory, does not appear. In later life it is 
interesting to learn that she sought in the 
Church of Rome the comfort which Rip- 
ley's transcendentalism was not able to 
afford her. When she died in 1859 she had 
held the faith of Rome for nearly a dozen 
years, and, curiously enough, was buried 
as a Catholic from that very building in 
which her husband had preached a^ a 
Unitarian early in their married life, the 
church having in the interim been pur- 
chased by the Catholics. With just one 
glimpse of the later Ripley himself, we 
must leave this interesting couple. In 
1866, when, armed with a letter of intro- 
duction from Emerson, the original Brook 
Farmer sought Carlyle (who had once de- 
scribed him as " a Socinian minister who 

299 



OLD NEW EIS'GLAjS^D EOOETREES 

had left his pulpit to reform the world 
by cultivating onions "), and Carlyle 
greeted him with a long and violent tirade 
against our government, Ripley sat quietly 
through it all, but when the sage of Chelsea 
paused for breath, calmly rose and left the 
house, saying no word of remonstrance. 

It is, of course, however, in Hawthorne 
and his descriptions in the " Blithedale 
Romance " of the life at Brook Farm that 
the principal interest of most readers cen- 
tres. This work has come to be regarded 
as the epic of the community, and it is 
now generally conceded that Hawthorne 
was in this novel far more of a realist 
than was at first admitted. He did not 
avoid the impulse to tell the happenings 
of life at the farm pretty nearly as he 
found them, and substantial as the charac- 
ters may or may not be, the daily life and 
doings, the scenery, the surroundings, and 
300 



OLD JSTEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

even trivial details are presented with a 
well-nigh faultless accuracy. 

The characters, as I have said, are not 
easily traceable, but even in this respect 
Hawthorne was something of a photog- 
rapher. Zenobia seems a blend of Mar- 
garet Fuller and of Mrs. Barlow, who as 
Miss Penniman was once a famous Brook- 
line beauty of lively and attractive dispo- 
sition. In the strongest and most repel- 
lant character of the novel, Ilollingsworth, 
Hawthorne seems to have incorporated 
something of the fierce earnestness of 
Brownson and the pathetic zeal of Bipley. 
And those who best know Brook Farm are 
able to find in the book reflections of other 
well-known members of the community. 
For the actual life of the place, however, 
readers cannot do better than peruse 
Lindsay Swift's recent delightful work, 

301 



OLD Is^EW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

'^ Brook Farm, Its Members, Scholars, and 
Visitors." 

There was, we learn here, a charming 
happy-go-luckiness about the whole life. 
Partly from necessity, partly from choice, 
the young people used to sit on the stairs 
and on the floor during the evening enter- 
tainments. Dishes were washed and wiped 
to the tune of ^' Oh, Canaan, Bright Ca- 
naan," or some other song of the time. 
When about their work the women wore 
short skirts with knickerbockers; the 
water-cure and the starving-cure both re- 
ceived due attention at the hands of some 
of the members of the household ; at table 
the customary formula was, " Is the butter 
within the sphere of your influence ? " 
And very often the day^s work ended in a 
dance, a walk to Eliot's Pulpit, or a moon- 
light hour on the Charles ! 

During the earlier years the men, who 
302 



OLD NEW EXGLAKD ROOFTEEES 

were in excess of the young women in 
point of numbers, helped very largely in 
the household labours. George William 
Curtis occasionally trimmed lamps, Charles 
Dana, who after^^ard founded the New 
York Sun, organised a band of griddle- 
cake servitors composed of '^ four of the 
most elegant youths of the Community ! " 
One legend, which has the air of prob- 
ability, records that a student confessed his 
passion while helping his sweetheart at 
the sink. Of love there was indeed not a 
little at Brook Farm. Cupid is said to 
have made much havoc in the Community, 
and though very little mismating is to be 
traced to the intimacy of the life there, 
fourteen marriages have been attributed to 
friendships begun at Brook Farm, and 
there was even one wedding there, that of 
John Orvis to John Dwight's sister, 
Marianne. At this simple ceremony Will- 

303 



OLD :N^EW ENGLA:^rD EOOFTREES 

iam Henry Channing was the minister, 
and John Dwight made a speech of exactly 
■G.Ye words. 

Starting with about fifteen persons, the 
numbers at the farm increased rapidly, 
though never above one hundred and twenty 
people were there at a time. It is estimated, 
however, that about two hundred individ- 
uals were connected with the Community 
from first to last. Of these all the well- 
known ones are now dead, unless, indeed, 
one is to count among the " Farmers " 
Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, who as a very 
young girl was a teacher in the infant 
department of the school. 

Yet though the Farmers have almost 
all passed beyond, delicious anecdotes 
about them are all the time coming to light. 
There is one story of "Sam" Larned which 
is almost too good to be true. Larned, it 
is said, steadily refused to drink milk on 
304 



OLD NEW E:N"GLAjS^D kooftkees 

the ground that his relations with the cow 
did not justify him in drawing on her 
reserves, and when it was pointed out to 
him that he ought on the same principle 
to abandon shoes, he is said to have made 
a serious attempt to discover some more 
moral type of footwear. 

And then there is another good story 
of an instance when Brook Farm hos- 
pitality had fatal results. An Irish 
baronet, Sir John Caldwell, fifth of that 
title, and treasurer-general at Canada, 
after supping with the Community on its 
greatest delicacy, pork and beans, returned 
to the now departed Tremont House in 
Boston, and died suddenly of apoplexy ! 

This baronet's son was wont later to 
refer to the early members of the Commu- 
nity as " extinct volcanoes of transcen- 
dental nonsense and humbuggery." But 
no witty sallies of this sort are able to 

305 



OLD :^EW E]SrGLA:N^D ROOFTREES 

lessen in the popular mind the reverence 
with which this Brook Farm essay in 
idealism must ever be held. For this 
Community, when all is said, remains the 
most successful and the most interesting 
failure the world has ever known. 



306 



MAEGARET FULLER: MARCHESA 
D'OSSOLI 

y^NY account of Brook Farm which 
y1 should neglect to dwell upon the 
part played in the community life 
by Margaret Fuller, Marchesa d'Ossoli, 
would be almost like the play of " Ham- 
let " with the Prince of Denmark left out. 
For although Margaret Fuller never lived 
at Brook Farm — was, indeed, only an 
occasional visitor there — her influence 
pervaded the place, and, as we feel from 
reading the " Blithedale Romance," she 
was really, whether absent or present, the 
strongest personality connected with the 
experiment. 

307 



OLD NEW E]SrGLA:t^D KOOFTKEES 

Hawthorne's first bucolic experience was 
with the famous " transcendental heifer " 
mistakenly said to have been the property 
of Margaret Fuller. As a matter of fact, 
the beast had been named after Cambridge's 
most intellectual woman, by Ripley, who 
had a whimsical fashion of thus honouring 
his friends. According to H awrthorne, the 
name in this case was not inapt, for the 
cow was so recalcitrant and anti-social that 
it was finally sent to Coventry by the more 
docile kine, always to be counted on for 
moderate conservatism. 

This cow's would-be-tamer, not washing 
to be unjust, refers to this heifer as having 
" a very intelligent face " and " a reflective 
cast of character." He certainly paid Mar- 
garet Fuller herself no such tribute, but 
thus early in his Brook Farm experience 
let appear his thinly veiled contempt for 
the high priestess of transcendentalism. 
308 



OLD ]\TEW E^TGLxlND ROOFTKEES 

Even earlier his antagonism toward this 
eminent woman was strong, if it was not 
frank, for he wrote : "I was invited to 
dine at Mr. Bancroft's yesterday with Miss 
Margaret Fuller, but Providence had given 
me some business to do for which I was 
very thankful." 

The unlovely side of Margaret Fuller 
must have made a very deep impression 
upon Hawthorne. Gentle as the great ro- 
mancer undoubtedly was by birth and 
training, he has certainly been very harsh 
in writing, both in his note-book and in his 
story of Brook Farm, of the woman we rec- 
ognise in Zenobia. One of the most inter- 
esting literary wars ever carried on in this 
vicinity, indeed, was that which was waged 
here some fifteen years ago concerning 
Julian Hawthorne's revelations of his 
father's private opinion of the Marchesa 
d'Ossoli. The remarks in question oc- 

309 



OLD KEW EITGLA^TD EOOFTEEES 

cur red in the great Hawthorne's " Roman 
Journal," and were certainly sufficiently 
scathing to call for such warm defence 
as Margaret's surviving friends hastened 
to offer. Hawthorne said among other 
things ; 

" Margaret Fuller had a strong and 
coarse nature which she had done her ut- 
most to refine, with infinite pains ; but, of 
course, it could be only superficially 
changed. . . . Margaret \ias not left in the 
hearts and minds of those who knew her 
any deep witness of her integrity and 
purity. She was a great humbug — of 
course, with much talent and moral reality, 
or else she could never have been so great 
a humbug. . . . Toward the last there ap- 
pears to have been a total collapse in poor 
Margaret, morally and intellectually; 
and tragic as her catastrophe was. Provi- 
dence was, after all, kind in putting her 
310 



OLD :n^ew englaistd rooftrees 

and her clownish husband and their child 
on board that fated ship. ... On the 
whole, I do not know but I like her 
the better, though, because she proved her- 
self a very woman after all, and fell as the 
meanest of her sisters might." 

The latter sentences refer to Margaret's 
marriage to Ossoli, a man some ten years 
the junior of his gifted wife, and by no 
means her intellectual equal. That the 
marriage was a strange one even Mar- 
garet's most ardent friends admit, but it 
was none the less exceedingly human and 
very natural, as Hawthorne implies, for a 
woman of thirty-seven, whose interests had 
long been of the strictly intellectual kind, 
to yield herself at last to the impulses of 
an affectionate nature. 

But we are getting very much ahead of 
our story, which should begin, of course, 
far back in May, 1810, when there was 

311 



OLD NEW ENGLAIsTD ROOFTKEES 

born, at the corner of Eaton and Cherry 
Streets, in Cambridgeport, a tiny daughter 
to Timothy Fuller and his wife. The 
dwelling in which Margaret first saw the 
light still stands, and is easily recognised 
by the three elms in front, planted by the 
proud father to celebrate the advent of his 
first child. 

The garden in which Margaret and her 
mother delighted has long since vanished ; 
but the house still retains a certain dignity, 
though now divided into three separate 
tenements, numbered respectively 69, 72, 
and 75 Cherry Street, and occupied by a 
rather migratory class of tenants. The 
pillared doorway and the carved wreaths 
above it still give an old-fashioned grace 
to the somewhat dilapidated house. 

The class with which Margaret may be 
said to have danced through Harvard Col- 
lege was that of 1829, which has been 
312 



OLD ^EW e]^gla:nd roofteees 

made by the wit and poetry of Holmes the 
most eminent class that ever left Harvard. 
The memory of one lady has preserved for 
us a picture of the girl Margaret as she 
appeared at a ball v^hen she was sixteen. 

" She had a very plain face, half-shut 
eyes, and hair curled all over her head; 
she was dressed in a badly-cut, low-neck 
pink silk, with white muslin over it; and 
she danced quadrilles very awkwardly, 
being withal so near-sighted that she could 
hardly see her partner." 

With Holmes she was not especially in- 
timate, we learn, though they had been 
schoolmates ; but with two of the most con- 
spicuous members of the class — William 
Henry Channing and James Freeman 
Clarke — she formed a lifelong friendship, 
and these gentlemen became her biog- 
raphers. 

Yet, after all, the most important part 

813 



OLD NEW EISTGLAIS^D EOOFTREES 

of a woman's training is that which she 
obtains from her own sex, and of this Mar- 
garet Fuller had quite her share. She was 
one of those maidens who form passion- 
ate attachments to older women, and there 
were many Cambridge ladies of the college 
circle who in turn won her ardent loyalty. 

" My elder sister/' writes Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson, in his biography of 
Margaret Fuller, " can v/ell remember this 
studious, self-conscious, over-grown girl as 
sitting at my mother's feet, covering her 
hands with kisses, and treasuring her every 
word. It was the same at other times with 
other women, most of whom were too much 
absorbed in their own duties to give more 
than a passing solicitude to this rather 
odd and sometimes inconvenient adorer." 

The side of Margaret Fuller to which 
scant attention has been paid heretofore 
is this ardently affectionate side, and this 
314 



OLD KEW E]S[GLA:NrD KOOFTEEES 

it is which seems to account for what has 
always before appeared inexplicable — her 
romantic marriage to the young Marchese 
d'Ossoli. The intellect was in truth only 
a small part of Margaret, and if Haw- 
thorne had improved, as he might have 
done, his opportunities to study the whole 
nature of the woman, he would not have 
written even for his private diary the harsh 
sentences already quoted. One has only 
to look at the heroic fashion in which, 
after the death of her father, Margaret 
took up the task of educating her brothers 
and sisters to feel that there was much 
besides selfishness in this woman's make- 
up. !N'or can one believe that Emerson 
would ever have cared to have for the 
friend of a lifetime a woman who was 
a " humbug." Of Margaret's school- 
teaching, conversation classes on West 
Street, Boston, and labours on the Dialy a 

315 



OLD NEW EN-GLAND ROOETKEES 

transcendental paper in which Emerson 
was deeply interested, there is not space to 
speak here. But one phase of her work 
which cannot be ignored is that performed 
on the Tribune^ in the days of Horace 
Greeley. 

Greeley brought Boston's high priestess 
to 'New York for the purpose of putting 
the literary criticism of the Tribune on a 
higher plane than any American newspa- 
per then occupied, as well as that she might 
discuss in a large and stimulating way 
all philanthropic questions. That she rose 
to the former opportunity her enemies 
would be the first to grant, but only those 
who, like Margaret herself, believe in the 
sisterhood of women could freely endorse 
her attitude on philanthropic subjects. 

Surely, though, it could not have been 
a hard woman of whom Horace Greeley 
wrote : " If she had been born to large 
316 



OLD N^EW EISTGLAKD KOOFTEEES 

fortune, a house of refuge for all female 
outcasts desiring to return to the ways of 
virtue would have been one of her most 
cherished and first realised conceptions. 
She once attended, with other noble women, 
a gathering of outcasts of their sex, and, 
being asked how they appeared to her, 
replied, * As women like myself, save that 
they are victims of wrong and misfor- 
tune.' " 

While labouring for the Tribune, Mar- 
garet Fuller was all the time saving her 
money for the trip to Europe, which had 
her life long been her dream of felicity; 
and at last, on the first of August, 1846, 
she sailed for her Elysian Fields. There, 
in December, 1847, she was secretly mar- 
ried, and in September, 1848, her child 
was born. What these experiences must 
have meant to her we are able to guess 
from a glimpse into her private journal 

317 



OLD ^EW E^NTGLAE^D EOOFTREES 

in which she had many years before re- 
corded her profoundest feeling about mar- 
riage and motherhood. 

" I have no home, ^o one loves me. 
But I love many a good deal, and see 
some way into their eventful beauty. . . . 
I am myself growing better, and shall by 
and by be a worthy object of love, one that 
will not anywhere disappoint or need 
forbearance. ... I have no child, and the 
woman in me has so craved this experience 
that it has seemed the want of it must 
paralyse me. . . ." 

The circumstances under which Mar- 
garet Fuller and her husband first met are 
full of interest. Soon after Miss Fuller's 
arrival in Kome, early in 1847, she went 
one day to hear vespers at St. Peter's, and 
becoming separated from her friends after 
the service, she wns noted as she examined 
the church by a young man of gentlemanly 
318 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOETKEES 

address, who, perceiving her discomfort 
and her lack of Italian, offered his services 
as a guide in her endeavour to find her 
companions. 

Not seeing them anywhere, the young 
Marquis d'Ossoli, for it was he, accom- 
panied Miss Euller home, and they met 
once or twice again before she left Rome 
for the summer. The following season 
Miss Euller had an apartment in Rome, 
and she often received among her guests 
this young patriot with whose labours in 
behalf of his native city she was thoroughly 
in sympathy. 

When the young man after a few months 
declared his love, Margaret refused to 
marry him, insisting that he should choose 
a younger woman for his wife. " In this 
way it rested for some weeks/' writes Mrs. 
Story, who knew them both, " during which 
we saw Ossoli pale, dejected, and unhappy, 

319 



OLD ^TEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

He was always with Margaret, but in a 
sort of hopeless, desperate manner, until 
at length he convinced her of his love, 
and she married him." 

Then followed the wife's service in the 
hospitals while Ossoli was in the army 
outside the city. After the birth of their 
child, Angelo, the happy little family went 
to Florence. 

The letters which passed between the 
young nobleman and the wife he adored 
are still extant, having been with the body 
of her beautiful baby the only things of 
Margaret Fuller's saved from the fatal 
wreck in which she and her two loved ones 
were lost. One of these letters will be 
enough to show the tenderness of the man : 

" Rome, 21 October, 1848. 
" Mia Caea : — I learn by yours of the 
20th that you have received the ten scudi, 
320 



OLD iq'EW E:NrGLAND EOOFTEEES 

and it makes me more tranquil. I feel also 
Mogliani's indolence in not coming to in- 
oculate our child ; bui, my love, I pray you 
not to disturb yourself so much, and not to 
be sad, hoping that our dear love will be 
guarded by God, and will be free from all 
misfortunes. He will keep the child for 
us and give us the means to sustain him." 

In answer to this letter, or one like it, 
we find the woman whom Hawthorne had 
deemed hard and cold writing : 

" Saturday Evening, 
" 28 October, 1848. 
"... It rains very hard every day, but 
to-day I have been more quiet, and our 
darling has been so good, I have taken 
so much pleasure in being with him. When 
he smiles in his sleep, how it makes my 
heart beat! He has grown fat and very- 
fair, and begins to play and spring. You 

321 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

will have much pleasure in seeing him. 1 

again. He sends you many kisses. He 
bends his head toward me when he asks 
a kiss." 

Both Madame Ossoli and her husband 
were very fearful as they embarked on the 
fated ship which was to take them to 
America. He had been cautioned by one 
who had told his fortune when a boy to 
beware of the sea, and his wife had long 
cherished a superstition that the year 1850 
would be a marked epoch in her life. It 
is remarkable that in writing to a friend 
of her fear Madame Ossoli said : " I pray 
that if we are lost it may be brief anguish, 
and Ossoli, the babe, and I go together." 

They sailed none the less, May 17, 1850, 

on the Elizabeth, sl new merchant vessel, 

which set out from Leghorn. Misfortune 

soon began. The captain sickened and 

322 



OLD NEW e:n^gLx\:\td rooftrees 

died of malignant smallpox, and after his 
burial at sea and a week's detention at 
Gibraltar, little Angelo cangbt the dread 
disease and was restored with difficulty. 
Yet a worse fate was to follow. 

At noon of July 18, while they were off 
the coast of I^ew Jersey, there was a gale, 
followed by a hurricane, which dashed the 
ship on that Fire Island Beach which has 
engulfed so many other vessels. Margaret 
Fuller and her husband were drowned with 
their child. The bodies of the parents 
were never recovered, but that of little 
Angelo was buried in a seaman's chest 
among the sandhills, from which it was 
later disinterred and brought to our own 
Mount Auburn by the relatives who had 
never seen the baby in life. 

And there to-day in a little green grave 
rests the child of this great woman's great 
lova 

323 



THE OLD MANSE AND SOME OF 
ITS MOSSES 

u ^j lii > jj;e Old Manse/' writes Haw- 
/ thorne, in his charming intro- 
duction to the quaint stories, 
" Mosses from an Old Manse," " had never 
been profaned by a lay occupant until that 
memorable summer afternoon when I en- 
tered it as my home. A priest had 
built it ; a priest had succeeded to it ; other 
priestly men from time to time had dwelt 
in it; and children born in its chambers 
had grown up to assume the priestly char- 
acter. It is awful to reflect how many ser- 
mons must have heen written here! . . . 
Here it was, too, that Emerson wrote 
324 



i 



OLD KEW EN^GLAND ROOFTREES 

' Nature ; ' for he was then an inhabitant 
of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyr- 
ian dawn and Paphian sunset and moon- 
rise from the summit of our eastern hill." 

Emerson's residence in the Old Manse 
is to be accounted for by the fact that his 
grandfather was its first inhabitant. And 
it was while living there with his mother 
and kindred, before his second marriage 
in 1835, that he produced " Nature." 

It is to the parson, the Reverend Will- 
iam Emerson, that we owe one of the most 
valuable Revolutionary documents that 
have come down to us. Soon after the 
young minister came to the old Manse 
(which was then the New Manse), he had 
occasion to make in his almanac this stir- 
ring entry : 

" This morning, between one and two 
o'clock, we were alarmed by the ringing 
of tlie bell, and upon examination found 

325 



OLD NEW ENGLAI^D EOOFTEEES 

that the troops, to the number of eight 
hundred, had stole their march from Bos- 
ton, in boats and barges, from the bottom 
of the Common over to a point in Cam- 
bridge, near to Inman's farm, and were 
at Lexington meeting-house half an hour 
before sunrise, where they fired upon a 
body of our men, and (as we afterward 
heard) had killed several. This intelli- 
gence was brought us first by Doctor Sam- 
uel Prescott, who narrowly escaped the 
guard that were sent before on horses, 
purposely to prevent all posts and messen- 
gers from giving us timely information. 
He, by the help of a very fleet horse, 
crossing several walks and fences, arrived 
at Concord, at the time above mentioned; 
when several posts were immediately 
dispatched that, returning, confirmed the 
account of the regulars' arrival at Lexing- 
ton and that they were on their way to 
326 



OLD ISTEW ETTGLAND ROOFTREES 

Concord. Upon this, a number of our 
minute-men belonging to this town, and 
Acton, and Lincoln, with several others 
that were in readiness, marched out to 
meet them ; while the alarm company was 
preparing to receive them in the town. 
Captain Minot, who commanded them, 
thought it proper to take possession of the 
hill above the meeting-house, as the most 
advantageous situation. 'No sooner had 
our men gained it, than we were met by 
the companies that were sent out to meet 
the troops, who informed us that they were 
just upon us, and that we must retreat, as 
their number was more than treble ours. 
We then retreated from the hill near the 
Liberty Pole, and took a new post back of 
the town upon an eminence, where we 
formed into two battalions, and waited the 
arrival of the enemy. 

" Scarcely had we formed before we 

327 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND ROOFTREES 

saw the British troops at the distance of 
a quarter of a mile, glittering in arms, 
advancing toward us with the greatest 
celerity. Some were for making a stand, 
notwithstanding the superiority of their 
numbers, but others, more prudent, thought 
best to retreat till our strength should be 
equal to the enemy's by recruits from the 
neighbouring towns, that were continually 
coming in to our assistance. Accordingly 
we retreated over the bridge; when the 
troops came into the town, set fire to several 
carriages for the artillery, destroyed sixty 
barrels flour, rifled several houses, took pos- 
session of the town-house, destroyed ^ye 
hundred pounds of balls, set a guard of 
one hundred men at the North Bridge, and 
sent a party to the house of Colonel Bar- 
rett, where they were in the expectation of 
finding a quantity of warlike stores. But 
these were happily secured just before 
328 



OLD NEW e:n'Gland rooftkees 

their arrival, by transportation into the 
woods and other by-places. 

" In the meantime the guard sent by the 
enemy to secure the pass at the E'orth 
Bridge were alarmed by the approach of 
our people; who had retreated as before 
mentioned, and were now advancing, with 
special orders not to fire upon the troops 
unless fired upon. These orders were so 
punctually observed that we received the 
fire of the enemy in three several and sep- 
arate discharges of their pieces before it 
was returned by our commanding officer; 
the firing then became general for several 
minutes; in which skirmish two were 
killed on each side, and several of the 
enemy wounded. (It may here be ob- 
served, by the way, that we were the more 
cautious to prevent beginning a rupture 
with the king's troops, as we were then un- 
certain what had happened at Lexington, 

329 



OLD 'NEW e]^gla:n^d eooftkees 

and knew not that they had begun the 
quarrel there by first firing upon our peo- 
ple, and killing eight men upon the spot.) 
The three companies of troops soon quitted 
their post at the bridge, and retreated in 
the greatest disorder and confusion to the 
main body, who were soon upon the-ir 
march to meet them. 

" For half an hour the enemy, by their 
marches and countermarches, discovered 
great fickleness and inconstancy of mind, 
— sometimes advancing, sometimes return- 
ing to their former posts; till at length 
they quitted the town and retreated by 
the way they came. In the meantime, a 
party of our men (one hundred and fifty), 
took the back way through the Great Fields 
into the East Quarter, and had placed 
themselves to advantage, lying in ambush 
behind walls, fences, and buildings, ready 

330 



OLD I^EW E^^GLAKD ROOFTREES 

to fire upon the enemy on their re- 
treat." 1 

Here ends the important chronicle, the 
best first-hand account we have of the battle 
of Concord. But for this alone the first 
resident of the Old Manse deserves our 
memory and thanks. 

Mr. Emerson was succeeded at the 
Manse by a certain Doctor Ripley, a ven- 
erable scholar who left behind him a repu- 
tation for learning and sanctity which 
was reproduced in one of the ladies of 
his family, long the most learned woman 
in the little Concord circle which Haw- 
thorne soon after his marriage came to 
join. 

Eew ^ew England villages have re- 
tained so much of the charm and peaceful- 
ness of country life as has Concord, and 

1 ♦' Historic Towns of New England.'* G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons. 

331 



OLD :N'EW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

few dwellings in Concord have to-day so 
nearly the aspect they presented fifty 
years ago as does the Manse, where Haw- 
thorne passed three of the happiest years 
of his life. 

In the " American Note-Book/' there is 
a charming description of the pleasure the 
romancer and his young wife experienced 
in renovating and refurnishing the old 
parsonage which, at the time of their going 
into it, was " given up to ghosts and cob- 
webs/' Some of these ghosts have been 
shiveringly described by Hawthorne him- 
self in the marvellous paragraph of the in- 
troduction already referred to : ^'Our [cler- 
ical] ghost used to heave deep sighs in a 
particular corner of the parlour, and some- 
times rustle paper, as if he were turning 
over a sermon in the long upper entry — 
where, nevertheless, he was invisible, in 
spite of the bright moonshine that fell 
332 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

through the eastern window. Not im- 
probably he wished me to edit and publish 
a selection from a chest full of manuscript 
discourses that stood in the garret. 

" Once while Hillard and other friends 
sat talking with us in the twilight, there 
came a rustling noise as of a minister's 
silk gown sweeping through the very midst 
of the company, so closely as almost to 
brush against the chairs. Still there was 
nothing visible. 

" A yet stranger business was that of a 
ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard 
in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grind- 
ing coffee, cooking, ironing, — perform- 
ing, in short, all kinds of domestic labour. 

— although no traces of anything accom- 
plished could be detected the next morn- 
ing. Some neglected duty of her servitude 

— some ill-starched ministerial band — 

338 



OLD i^EW e^tgla:n^d kooftrees 

disturbed the poor damsel in her grave, 
and kept her at work without wages." 

The little drawing-room once remod- 
elled, however, and the kitchen given over 
to the Hawthorne pots and pans — in 
which the great Hawthorne himself used 
often to have a stake, according to the tes- 
timony of his wife, who once wrote in this 
connection, " Imagine those magnificent 
eyes fixed anxiously upon potatoes cooking 
in an iron kettle ! " — the ghosts came no 
more. Of the great people who in the 
flesh passed pleasant hours in the little 
parlour, Thoreau, Ellery Channing, Emer- 
son, and Margaret Fuller are names known 
by everybody as intimately connected with 
the Concord circle. 

Hawthorne himself cared little for 

society. Often he would go to the village 

and back without speaking to a single soul, 

he tells us, and once when his wife was 

334 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTREES 

absent he resolved to pass the whole term 
of her visit to relatives without saying a 
word to any human being. With Thoreau, 
however, he got on very well. This odd 
genius was as shy and ungregarious as 
was the dark-eyed " teller of tales/^ but 
the two appear to have been socially dis- 
posed toward each other, and there are 
delightful bits in the preface to the 
" Mosses '' in regard to the hours they 
spent together boating on the large, quiet 
Concord River. Thoreau was a great voy- 
ager in a canoe which he had constructed 
himself (and which he eventually made 
over to Hawthorne), as expert indeed in the 
use of his paddle as the redman who had 
once haunted the same silent stream. 

Of the beauties of the Concord River 
Hawthorne has written a few sentences 
that will live while the silver stream con- 
tinues to flow : " It comes creeping softly 

336 



OLD NEW EJ^GLAND KOOFTREES 

through the mid-most privacy and deepest 
heart of a wood which whispers it to be 
quiet, while the stream whispers back again 
from its sedgy borders, as if river and 
wood were hushing one another to sleep. 
Yes; the river sleeps along its course 
and dreams of the sky and the clustering 
foliage. ..." 

Concerning the visitors attracted to 
Concord by the great original thinker who 
was Hawthorne's near neighbour, the ro- 
mancer speaks with less delicate sympathy : 
" ITever was a poor little country village 
infested with such a variety of queer, 
strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, 
most of whom look upon themselves to be 
important agents of the world's destiny, 
yet are simply bores of a very intense 
character." A bit further on Hawthorne 
speaks of these pilgrims as ^' hobgoblins 
of flesh and blood," people, he humourously 
336 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

comments, who had lighted on a new- 
thought or a thought they fancied new, 
and " came to Emerson as the finder of a 
glittering gem hastens to a lapidary to 
ascertain its quality and value." With 
Emerson himself Hawthorne was on terms 
of easy intimacy. ^' Being happy," as he 
says, and feeling, therefore, " as if there 
were no question to be put," he was not 
in any sense desirous of metaphysical in- 
tercourse with the great philosopher. 

It was while on the way home from his 
friend Emerson's one day that Hawthorne 
had that encounter with Margaret Fuller 
about which it is so pleasant to read because 
it serves to take away the taste of other less 
complimentary allusions to this lady to be 
found in Hawthorne's works : 

"After leaving Mr. Emerson's I returned 
through the woods, and entering Sleepy 
Hollow, I perceived a lady reclining near 

337 



OLD :new e^tgland rooetrees 

the path which bends along its verge. It 
was Margaret herself. She had been there 
the whole afternoon, meditating or read- 
ing, for she had a book in her hand with 
some strange title which T did not under- 
stand and have forgotten. She said that 
nobody had broken her solitude, and was 
just giving utterance to a theory that no 
inhabitant of Concord ever visited Sleepy 
Hollow, when we saw a group of people 
entering the sacred precincts. Most of 
them followed a path which led them away 
from us; but an old man passed near us, 
and smiled to see Margaret reclining on 
the ground and me standing by her side. 
He made some remark upon the beauty of 
the afternoon, and withdrew himself 
into the shadow of the wood. Then we 
talked about autumn, and about the pleas- 
ures of being lost in the woods, and about 
the crows whose voices Margaret had 
338 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTEEES 

heard ; and about the experiences of early 
childhood, whose influence remains upon 
the character after the recollection of them 
has passed away; and about the sight of 
mountains from a distance, and the view 
from their summits ; and about other mat- 
ters of high and low philosophy." 

Nothing that Hawthorne has ever writ- 
ten of Concord is more to be cherished 
to-day than this description of a happy 
afternoon passed by him in Sleepy Hollow 
talking with Margaret Fuller of ^' matters 
of high and low philosophy." For there 
are few parts of Concord to which visitors 
go more religiously than to the still old 
cemetery, where on the hill by Ridge Path 
Hawthorne himself now sleeps quietly, 
with the grave of Thoreau just behind him, 
and the grave of Emerson, his philosopher- 
friend, on the opposite side of the way. 
A great pine stands at the head of Haw- 

339 



OLD :N^EW EIsTGLAND rooetkees 

thorne's last resting-place, and a huge un- 
hewn block of pink marble is his formal 
monument. 

Yet the Old Manse will, so long as it 
stands, be the romancer's most intimate 
relic, for it was here that he lived as a 
happy bridegroom, and here that his first 
child was born. And from this ancient 
dwelling it was that he drew the inspira- 
tion for what is perhaps the most curious 
book of tales in all American literature, 
a book of which another American master 
of prose ^ has said, " Hawthorne here did 
for our past what Walter Scott did for 
the past of the mother-country; another 
Wizard of the !N'orth, he breathed the 
breath of life into the dry and dusty mate- 
rials of history, and summoned the great 
dead again to live and move among us." 
1 Henry James. 

340 



SALEM'S CHINESE GOD 

^^F the romantic figures which grace 
\M the history of E'ew England in the 
nineteenth century, none is to be 
compared in dash and in all those other 
qualities that captivate the imagination 
with the figure of Frederick Townsend 
Ward, the Salem boy who won a general- 
ship in the Chinese military service, sup- 
pressed the Tai-Ping rebellion, organised 
the " Ever- Victorious Army'' — for whose 
exploits *^ Chinese " Gordon always gets 
credit in history — and died fighting at 
INTing Po for a nation of which he had be- 
come one, a fair daughter of which he had 
married, and by which he is to-day wor- 

341 



OLD ISTEW EI^GLAKD EOOFTEEES 

shipped as a god. Very far certainly did 
this soldier of fortune wander in the thirty 
short years of his life from the peaceful 
red-brick Townsend mansion (now, alas ! a 
steam bread bakery), at the corner of 
Derby and Carleton Streets, Salem, in 
which, in 1831, he was born. 

This house was built by Ward's grand- 
father, Townsend, and during Frederick's 
boyhood was a charming place of the com- 
fortable colonial sort, to which was joined 
a big, rambling, old-fashioned garden, and 
from the upper windows of which there 
was to be had a fascinating view of the 
broad-stretching sea. To the sea it was, 
therefore, that the lad naturally turned 
when, after ending his education at the 
Salem High School, he was unable to gain 
admission to the military academy at West 
Point and follow the soldier career in 
which it had always been his ambition to 
342 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

shine. He shipped before the mast on an 
American vessel sailing from New York. 
Apparently even the hardships of such a 
common sailor's lot could not dampen his 
ardour for adventure, for he made a num- 
ber of voyages. 

At the outbreak of the Crimean war 
young Ward was in France, and, thinking 
that his long-looked for opportunity had 
come, he entered the French army for ser- 
vice against the Russians. Enlisting as a 
private, he soon, through the influence of 
friends, rose to be a lieutenant; but, be- 
coming embroiled in a quarrel with his 
superior officer, he resigned his commis- 
sion and returned to New York, without 
having seen service either in Russia or 
Turkey. 

The next few years of the young man's 
life were passed as a ship broker in New 
York City, but this work-a-day career soon 

343 



OLD N^EW EISTGLAE^D EOOFTREES 

became too humdrum, and he looked about 
for something that promised more adven- 
tures. He had not to look far. Colonel 
William Walker and his filibusters were 
about to start on the celebrated expedition 
against ^Nicaragua, and with them Ward 
determined to cast in his lot. Through the 
trial bj fire which awaited the ill-fated 
expedition, he passed unhurt, and escaping 
by some means or other its fatal termina- 
tion, returned to ]N'ew York. 

California next attracted his attention, 
but here he met with no better success, and 
after a hand-to-mouth existence of a few 
months he turned again to seafaring life, 
and shipped for China as the mate of an 
American vessel. His arrival at Shanghai 
in 1859 was most opportune, for there the 
chance for which he had been longing 
awaited him. 

The great Tai-Ping rebellion, that half- 
344 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

Christian, wholly fanatical uprising which 
devastated many flourishing provinces, had, 
at this time, attained alarming propor- 
tions. Ching Wang, with a host of blood- 
crazed rebels, had swept over the country 
in the vicinity of Shanghai with fire and 
sword, and at the time of Ward's arrival 
these fanatics were within eighteen miles 
of the city. 

The Chinese merchants had appealed in 
vain to the foreign consuls for assistance. 
The imperial government had made no 
plans for the preservation of Shanghai. So 
the wealthy merchants, fearing for their 
stores, resolved to take the matter into 
their own hands, and after a consultation 
of many days, offered a reward of two 
hundred thousand dollars to any body of 
foreigners who should drive the Tai-Pings 
from the city of Sungkiang. 

Salem's soldier of fortune, Frederick T. 

345 



OLD NEW EN'GLAl^D KOOFTKEES 

Ward, responded at once to the opportunity 
thus offered. He accepted in June, 1860, 
the offer of Ta Kee, the mandarin at the 
head of the merchant body, and in less than 
a week — such was the magnetism of the 
man — had raised a body of one hundred 
foreign sailors, and, with an American by 
the name of Henry Burgevine as his lieu- 
tenant, had set out for Sungkiang. The 
men in Ward's company were desperadoes, 
for the most part, but they were no match, 
of course, for the twelve thousand Tai- 
Pings. This Ward realised as soon as the 
skirmishing advance had been made, and 
he returned to Shanghai for reinforce- 
ments. 

From the Chinese imperial troops he ob- 
tained men to garrison whatever courts 
the foreign legation might capture, an ar- 
rangement which left the adventurers free 

346 



OLD :^rEW E^^GLA^'D EOOFTKEES 

to go wherever their action could be most 
effective. 

Thus reinforced, Ward once more set 
out for Sungkiang. Even on this occasion 
his men were outnumbered one hundred 
to one, but, such was the desperation of 
the attacking force, the rebels were driven 
like sheep to the slaughter, and the defeat 
of the Tai-Pings was overwhelming. It 
was during this battle, it is interesting to 
know, that the term ^^ foreign devils " first 
found place in the Chinese vocabulary. 

The promised reward was forthwith pre- 
sented to the gifted American soldier, and 
immediately Ward accepted a second com- 
mission against the rebels at Singpo. The 
Tai-Pings of this city were under the 
leadership of a renegade Englishman 
named Savage, and the fighting was fast 
and furious. Ward and his men performed 
many feats of valour, and actually scaled 

347 



OLD :NEW E:NrGLA^D ROOFTEEES 

tlie city wall, thirty feet in height, to fight 
like demons upon its top. But it was with- 
out avail. With heavy losses, they were 
driven back. 

But the attempt was not abandoned. Re- 
tiring to Shanghai, Ward secured the 
assistance of about one hundred new for- 
eign recruits, and with them returned once 
more to the scene of his defeat. Half a 
mile from the walls of Singpo the little 
band of foreign soldiers of fortune and 
poorly organised imperial troops were met 
by Savage and the Tai-Pings, and the bat- 
tle that resulted waged for hours. The 
rebels were the aggressors, and ten miles of 
Ward's retreat upon Sungkiang saw fight- 
ing every inch of the way. The line of 
retreat was strewn with rebel dead, and 
such were their losses that they retired 
from the province altogether. 

Later Savage was killed, and the Tai- 

348 



OLD ]S[EW ETs^GLAISTD EOOFTEEES 

Pings quieted down. Eor his exploits 
Ward received the monetary rewards 
agreed upon, and was also granted the 
button of a mandarin of the fourth degree. 

He had received severe wounds during 
the campaigns, and was taking time to 
recuperate from them at Shanghai when 
the jealousy of other foreigners made itself 
felt, and the soldier from Salem was 
obliged to face a charge before the United 
States consul that he had violated the neu- 
trality laws. The matter was dropped, 
however, because the hero of Sungkiang 
promply swore that he was no longer an 
American citizen, as he had become a 
naturalised subject of the Chinese em- 
peror ! 

Realising the value of the Chinese as 
fighting men, Ward now determined to or- 
ganise a number of Chinese regiments, 
officer them with Europeans, and arm and 

349 



OLD ISTEW EISTGLAND EOOFTREES 

equip them after American methods. This 
he did, and in six months he appeared at 
Shanghai at the head of three bodies of 
Chinese, splendidly drilled and under iron 
discipline. He arrived in the nick of time, 
and, routing a vastly superior force, saved 
the city from capture. 

After this exploit he was no longer 
shunned by Europeans as an adventurer 
and an outlaw. He was too prominent to 
be overlooked. His Ever- Victorious Army, 
as it was afterward termed, entered upon 
a campaign of glorious victory. One after 
another of the rebel strongholds fell before 
it, and its leader was made a mandarin 
of the highest grade, with the title of 
admiral-general. 

Ward then assumed the Chinese name of 

Hwa, and married Changmei, a maiden of 

high degree, who was nineteen at the time 

of her wedding, and as the daughter of one 

350 



OLD :^rEW ENGLAI^D KOOFTKEES 

of the richest and most exalted mandarins 
of the red button, was considered in China 
an exceedingly good match for the Salem 
youth. According to oriental standards 
she was a beauty, too. 

Ward did not rest long from his cam- 
paigns, however, for we find that he was 
soon besieged in the city of Sungkiang 
with a few men. A relieving force of the 
Ever- Victorious Army here came to his 
assistance. 

He did not win all his victories easily. 
In the battle of Ningpo, toward the end of 
the first division of the Tai-Ping rebellion, 
the carnage was frightful. Outnumbered, 
but not outgeneralled, the government 
forces fought valiantly. Ward was shot 
through the stomach while leading a 
charge, but refused to leave the field while 
the battle was on. Through his field offi- 
cers he directed his men, and when the 

351 



\ 



OLD NEW engla:n^d eoofteees 

victory was assured, fell back unconscious 
in the arms of his companion, Burgevine- 
He was carried to E'ingpo, where he died 
the following morning, a gallant and dis- 
tinguished soldier, although still only 
thirty years old. 

In the Confucian cemetery at ISTingpo 
his body was laid at rest with all possible 
honours and with military ceremony be- 
coming his rank. Over his grave, and that 
of his young wife, who survived him only 
a few months, a mausoleum was erected, 
and monuments were placed on the scenes 
of his victories. The mausoleum soon be- 
came a shrine invested with miraculous 
power, and a number of years after his 
death General Ward was solemnly declared 
to be a joss or god. The manuscript of tlie 
imperial edict to this effect is now pre- 
served in the Essex Institute. 

The command of the Ever- Victorious 
352 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

army reverted to Burgevine, but later^ 
through British intrigue, to General Gor- 
don. It was Ward, however, the Salem 
lad, who organised the army by which 
Chinese Gordon gained his fame. The 
British made a saint and martyr of Gor- 
don, and called Ward an adventurer and 
a common sailor, but the Chinese rated 
him more nearly as he deserved. 

In a little red-bound volume printed in 
Shanghai in 1863, and translated from the 
Chinese for the benefit of a few of General 
Ward's relatives in this country — a work 
which I have been permitted to examine — 
the native chronicler says of our hero : 

" What General Ward has done to and 
for China is as yet but imperfectly known, 
for those whose duty it is to transfer to pos- 
terity a record of this great man are either 
so wrapped in speculation as to how to 
build themselves up on his deeds of the 

353 



OLD NEW ENGLAN^D KOOFTREES 



past time, or are so fearful that any com'- 
ment on any subject regarding him may 
detract from their ability, that with his 
last breath they allow all that appertains 
to him to be buried in the tomb. Not one 
in ten thousand of them could at all 
approach him in military genius, in 
courage, and in resource, or do anything 
like what he did." 

In his native land Ward has never been 
honoured as he deserves to be. On the 
contrary, severe criticism has been accorded 
him because he was fighting in China for 
money during our civil war, ^^ when," said 
his detractors, " he might have been using 
his talents for the protection of the flag 
under which he was born." 

But this was the fault of circumstances 

rather than of intention. Ward wished, 

above everything, to be a soldier, and when 

he found fighting waiting for him in 

354 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

China, it was the most natural thing in the 
world for him to accept the opportunity 
the gods provided. But he did what he 
could under the circumstances for his 
country. He offered ten thousand dollars 
to the national cause — and was killed in 
the Chinese war before the answer to his 
proffer of financial aid came from Minister 
Anson Burlingame. 

It is rather odd that just the amount 
that he wished to be used by the North 
for the advancement of the Union cause 
has recently (1901) been bequeathed to 
the Essex Institute at Salem by Miss 
Elizabeth C. Ward, his lately deceased sis- 
ter, to found a Chinese library in memory 
of Salem's soldier of fortune. Thus is 
rounded out this very romantic chapter of 
modern American history. 



355 



THE WELL -SWEEP OF A SONG 

rHAT the wise Shakespeare spoke 
the truth when he observed that 
" one touch of nature makes the 
whole world kin " has never been better 
exemplified than in the affectionate tender- 
ness with which all sorts and conditions 
of men join in singing a song like ^^ The 
Old Oaken Bucket." As one hears this 
ballad in a crowded room, or even as so 
often given — in a J^ew England play like 
" The Old Homestead," one does not stop 
to analyse one's sensations; one forgets 
the homely phrase ; one simply feels and 
knows oneself the better for the memories 
356 



OLD :NrEw e:n^glai^d rooftkees 

of happy and innocent cliildliood which the 
simple song invokes. 

Dear, delightful Goldsmith has wonder- 
fully expressed in ''The Deserted Village'' 
the inextinguishable yearning for the spot 
we call " home " : 

"In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return and die at home at last," 

and it is this same lyric cry that has been 
crystallised for all time, so far as the 
American people are concerned, in '' The 
Old Oaken Bucket." 

The day will not improbably come when 
the allusions in this poem will demand as 
careful an explanation as some of Shake- 
speare's archaic references now call for. 
But even when this time does come, and 
an elaborate description of the strange old 
custom of drawing water from a hole in 

357 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

the ground bj means of a long pole and 
a rude pail will be necessary to an under- 
standing of the poem, men's voices will 
grow husky and their eyes will dim at the 
music of " The Old Oaken Bucket." 

It is to the town of Scituate, Massachu- 
setts, one of the most ancient settlements 
of the old colony, that we trace back the 
local colour which pervades the poem. The 
history of the place is memorable and in- 
teresting. The people come of a hardy 
and determined ancestry, who fought for 
every inch of ground that their descendants 
now hold. To this fact may perhaps be 
attributed the strength of those associa- 
tions, clinging like ivy around some of the 
most notable of the ancient homesteads. 

The scene so vividly described in the 

charming ballad we are considering is a 

little valley through which Herring Brook 

pursues its devious way to meet the tidal 

358 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOETREES 

waters of North River. '^ The view of it 
from Coleman Heights, with its neat cot- 
tages, its maple groves, and apple orchards, 
is remarkably beautiful," writes one appre- 
ciative author. The " wide-spreading 
pond,'' the " mill," the '' dairy-house," the 
" rock where the cataract fell," and even 
the " old well," if not the original " moss- 
covered bucket " itself, may still be seen 
just as the poet described them. 

In quaint, homely Scituate, Samuel 
Woodworth, the people's poet, was indeed 
born and reared. Although the original 
house is no longer there, a pretty place 
called " The Old Oaken Bucket House " 
still stands, a modern successor to the poet's 
home, and at another bucket, oaken if not 
old, the pilgrim of to-day may stop to 
slake his thirst from the very waters, the 
recollection of which gave the poet such 
exquisite pleasure in after years. One 

359 



OLD A^EW ENGLAND ROOETREES 

would fain have the surroundings un- 
changed — the cot where Woodworth 
dwelt, the ponderous well-sweep, creaking 
with age, at which his youthful hands were 
wont to tug strongly ; and finally the mossy 
bucket, overflowing with crystal nectar 
fresh from the cool depths below. Yet in 
spite of the changes, one gets fairly well 
the illusion of the ancient spot, and comes 
away well content to have quaffed a 
draught of such excellent water to the 
memory of this Scituate poet. 

The circumstances under which the pop- 
pular ballad was composed and written 
are said to be as follows: Samuel Wood- 
worth was a printer who had served his 
apprenticeship under the veteran Major 
Russell of the Columbian Centinel, a jour- 
nal which was in its day the leading Fed- 
eralist organ of New England. He had 
inherited the wandering propensity of his 
360 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOETKEES 

craft, and yielding to the desire for change 
he was successively in Hartford and New 
York, doing what he could in a journalistic 
way. In the latter city he became asso- 
ciated, after an unsuccessful career as a 
publisher, in the editorship of the Mirror, 
And it was while living in New York in 
the Bohemian fashion of his class, that, in 
company with some brother printers, he 
one day dropped in at a well-known estab- 
lishment then kept by one Mallory to take 
a social glass of wine. 

The cognac was pronounced excellent. 
After drinking it, Woodworth set his glass 
down on the table, and, smacking his lips, 
declared emphatically that Mallory's eau 
de vie was superior to anything that he had 
ever tasted. 

" There you are mistaken," said one of 
his comrades, quietly ; then added, " there 
certainly was one thing that far surpassed 

361 



OLD NEW EISTGLAND EOOFTREES 

this in the way of drinking, as you, too, 
will readily acknowledge." 

" Indeed ; and, pray, what was that ? " 
Woodworth asked, with apparent incred- 
ulity that anything could surpass the liquor 
then before him. 

" The draught of pure and sparkling 
spring water that we used to get from the 
old oaken bucket that hung in the well, 
after our return from the labours of the 
field on a sultry summer's day." 

No one spoke ; all were busy with their 
own thoughts. 

Woodworth's eyes became dimmed. 
" True, true," he exclaimed ; and soon 
after quitted the place. With his heart 
overflowing with the recollections that this 
chance allusion in a barroom had inspired, 
the scene of his happier childhood life 
rushed upon him in a flood of feeling. He 
hastened back to the oflBce in which he then 
362 



^ 



OLD IN-EW e;n'glai^d eooftkees 

worked, seized a pen, and in half an hour 
had written his popular ballad : 

** How dear to this heart are the scenes of my 
childhood, 
When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild- 
wood. 
And every loved spot which my infancy 
knew, — 
The wide-spreading pond and the mill which 
stood by it, 
The bridge and the rock where the cataract 
fell; 
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it. 
And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the 
well, — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the 
well. 

*' The moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure ; 
For often at noon when returned from the 
field, 
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure. 

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. 
How ardent I seized it with hands that were 
glowing I 
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell ; 

363 



OLD :N'EW ENGLAIS^D ROOFTREES 

Then soon with the emblem of truth overflow- 
ing, 
And dripping with coolness it rose from the 
well, — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well. 

"How sweet from the green mossy brim to 
receive it, 
As, poised from the curb, it inclined to my 
lips! 
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to 
leave it. 
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter 
sips. 
And now, far removed from the loved situation, 

The tear of regret will intrusively swell. 
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation. 

And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the 
well, — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the 
well." 

Woodworth's reputation rests upon thij 
one stroke of genius. He died in 1842 at 
the age of fifty-seven. But after almosi 
364 



OLD ISTEW ENGLAND ROOFTEEES 

fifty years his memory is still green, and 
we still delight to pay tender homage to 
the spot which inspired one of the most 
beautiful songs America has yet produced. 



365 



WHITTIEE'S LOST LOVE 

/N the life of the Quaker poet there is 
an unwritten chapter of personal his- 
tory full to the brim of romance. It 
will be remembered that Whittier in his 
will left ten thousand dollars for an Ames- 
bury Home for Aged Women. One room 
in this home Mrs. Elizabeth W. Pickard 
(the niece to whom the poet bequeathed his 
Amesbury homestead, and who passed 
away in the early spring of this year 
[1902], in an illness contracted while 
decorating her beloved uncle's grave on the 
anniversary of his birth), caused to be 
furnished with a massive black walnut 
366 



OLD ;NEW E:^rGLA¥D EOOFTREES 

set formerly used in the " spare-room " of 
her uncle's house — the room where Lucy 
Larcom, Gail Hamilton, the Gary sisters, 
and George Macdonald were in former 
times entertained. A stipulation of this 
gift was that the particular room in the 
Home thus to be furnished was to be 
known as the Whittier room. 

In connection with this Home and this 
room comes the story of romantic interest. 
Two years after the death of Mr. Whittier 
an old lady made application for admission 
to the Home on the ground that in her 
youth she was a schoolmate and friend of 
the poet. And although she was not en- 
titled to admission by being a resident of 
the town, she would no doubt have been 
received if she had not died soon after 
making the application. 

This aged woman was Mrs. Evelina 
Bray Downey, concerning whose schoolgirl 

367 



OLD :N'EW E]SrGLA:N'D EOOFTKEES 

friendship for Whittier many inaccurate 
newspaper articles were current at the 
time of her death, in the spring of 1895. 
The story as here told is, however, 
authentic. 

Evelina Bray was born at Marblehead, 
October 10, 1810. She was the youngest 
of ten children of a ship master, who made 
many voyages to the East Indies and to 
European ports. In a letter written in 
1884, Mrs Downey said of herself: " My 
father, an East India sea captain, made 
frequent and long voyages. For safe- 
keeping and improvement he sent me to 
Haverhill, bearing a letter of introduction 
from Captain William Story to the family 
of Judge Bartley. They passed me over to 
Mr. Jonathan K. Smith, and Mrs. Smith 
gave me as a roommate her only daughter, 
Mary. This was the opening season of 
the ISTew Haverhill Academy, a sort of 
368 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

rival to the Bradford Academy. Subse- 
quently I graduated from the Ipswich 
Female Seminary, in the old Mary Lyon 
days." 

Mary Smith, Miss Bray's roommate at 
Haverhill, and her lifelong friend — 
though for fifty years they were lost to 
each other — was afterward the wife of 
Eeverend Doctor S. F. Smith, the author 
of " America.'' 

Evelina is described as a tall and stri- 
kingly beautiful brunette, with remarkable 
richness of colouring, and she took high 
rank in scholarship. The house on Water 
Street at which she boarded was directly 
opposite that of Abijah W. Thayer, editor 
of the Haverhill Gazette^ with whom 
Whittier boarded while at the academy. 
Whittier was then nineteen years old, and 
Evelina was seventeen. Naturally, they 
walked to and from the school together, 

369 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTREES 

and their interest in each other was notice- 
able. 

If the Quaker lad harboured thoughts of 
marriage, and even gave expression to 
them, it would not be strange. But the 
traditions of Whittier's sect included dis- 
approval of music, and Evelina's father 
had given her a piano, and she was fasci- 
nated with the study of the art proscribed 
by the Quakers. Then, too, Whittier was 
poor, and his gift of versification, which 
had already given him quite a reputation, 
was not considered in those days of much 
consequence as a means of livelihood. If 
they did not at first realise, both of them, 
the hopelessness of their love, they found 
it out after Miss Bray's return to her home. 

About this time Mr. Whittier accom- 
panied his mother to a quarterly meeting 
of the Society of Friends at Salem, and 
one morning before breakfast took a walk 
370 



OLD NEW ENGLAND KOOFTKEES 

of a few miles to the quaint old town of 
Marblehead, where he paid a visit to the 
home of his schoolmate. She could not 
invite him in, but instead suggested a 
stroll along the picturesque, rocky shore 
of the bay. 

This was in the spring or early summer 
of 1828, and the poet was twenty years 
old, a farmer's boy, with high ambitions, 
but with no outlook as yet toward any 
profession. It may be imagined that the 
young couple, after a discussion of the 
situation, saw the hopelessness of securing 
the needed consent of their parents, and 
returned from their morning's walk with 
saddened hearts. Whatever dreams they 
may have cherished were from that hour 
abandoned, and they parted with this un- 
derstanding. 

In the next fifty years they met but once 
again, four or five years after the morning 

371 



OLD NEW e:n'Gland eoofteees 

walk, and this once was at Marblehead, 
along the shore. Miss Braj had in the 
meantime been teaching in a seminary 
in Mississippi, and Whittier had been edit- 
ing papers in Boston and Hartford, and 
had published his first book, a copy of 
which he had sent her. There was no re- 
newal at this time of their lover-like rela- 
tions, and they parted in friendship. 

I have said that they met but once in the 
half -century after that morning's walk; 
the truth is they were once again close to- 
gether, but Whittier was not conscious of 
it. This was while he was editing the 
Pennsylvania Freeman, at Philadelphia. 
Miss Bray was then associated with a Misa 
Catherine Beecher, in an educational 
movement of considerable importance, and 
was visiting Philadelphia. Just at this time 
a noted Massachusetts divine. Reverend 
Doctor Todd, was announced to preach in 
372 



OLD NEW ENGLAl^D ROOFTKEES 

the Presbyterian church, and both these 
Haverhill schoolmates were moved to hear 
him. By a singular chance they occupied 
the same pew, and sat close together, but 
Miss Bray was the only one who was con- 
scious of this, and she was too shy to reveal 
herself. It must have been her bonnet hid 
her face, for otherwise Whittier's remark- 
ably keen eyes could not have failed to 
recognise the dear friend of his school- 
days. 

Their next meeting was at the reunion 
of the Haverhill Academy class of 1827, 
which was held in 1885, half a century 
after their second interview at Marble- 
head. It was said by some that it was this 
schoolboy love which Whittier commemo- 
rated in his poem, " Memories." But Mr. 
Pickard, the poet's biographer, affirms that, 
so far as known, the only direct reference 
made by Whittier to the affair under 

373 



OLD NEW ENGLAND EOOFTKEES 

cousi deration occurred in the fine poem, 
" A Sea Dream," written in 1874. 

In the poet, now an old man, the sight 
of Marblehead awakens the memory of that 
morning walk, and he writes : 

" Is this the wind, the soft sea wind 
That stirred thy locks of brown ? 
Are these the rocks whose mosses knew 
The trail of thy light gown, 
Where boy and girl sat down ? 

" I see the gray fort's broken wall, 
The boats that rock below; 
And, out at sea, the passing sails 
We saw so long ago, 
Rose-red in morning's glow. 



« Thou art not here, thou art not there, 
Thy place I cannot see ; 
I only know that where thou art 
The blessed angels be, 
And heaven is glad for thee. 



« But turn to me thy dear girl-face 
Without the angel's crown, 
374 



OLD NEW e:n^gland eooftkees 

The wedded roses of thy lips, 
Thy loose hair rippling down 
In waves of golden brown. 

" Look forth once more through space and time 
And let thy sweet shade fall 
In tenderest grace of soul and form 
On memory's frescoed wall, — - 
A shadow, and yet all ! " 

Whittier, it will be seen, believed that 
the love of his youth was dead. He was 
soon to find out, in a very odd way, that 
this was not the case. 

Early in the forties. Miss Bray became 
principal of the " female department " of 
the Benton School at St. Louis. In 1849, 
during the prevalence of a fearful epi- 
demic, the school building was converted 
into a hospital, and one of the patients was 
an Episcopal clergyman. Reverend Will- 
iam S. Downey, an Englishman, claiming 
to be of noble birth. He recovered his 
health, but was entirely deaf, not being 

375 



OLD :n"ew ekglan^d eooftkees 

able to hear the loudest sound for the re- 
mainder of his life. Miss Bray married 
him, and for forty years endured martyr- 
dom, for he was of a tyrannous disposition 
and disagreeably eccentric. 

Mrs. Downey had never told her hus- 
band of her early acquaintance with Whit- 
tier, but he found it out by a singular 
chance. When Keverend S. E. Smith and 
his wife celebrated the fiftieth anniversary 
of their marriage the event was mentioned 
in the papers, and the fact that Mrs. Smith 
was a schoolmate of Whittier was chron- 
icled. Mr. Downey had heard his wife 
speak of being a schoolmate of the wife of 
the author of " America," and, putting 
these two circumstances together, he con- 
cluded that his wife must also have known 
the Quaker poet in his youth. He said 
nothing to her about this, however, but 
wrote a letter to Whittier himself, and sent 
376 



OLD NEW e:n^gland eooftkees 

with it a tract he had written in severe 
denunciation of Colonel Kobert G. Inger- 
soll. As a postscript to this letter he 
asked : " Did you ever know Evelina 
Bray ? " Whittier at once replied, ac- 
knowledging the receipt of the tract, and 
making this characteristic comment upon 
it: 

" It occurs to me to say, however, that 
in thy tract thee has hardly charity enough 
for that unfortunate man, Ingersoll, who, 
it seems to me, is much to be pitied for 
his darkness of unbelief. We must re- 
member that one of the great causes of 
infidelity is the worldliness, selfishness, 
and evil dealing of professed Christians. 
An awful weight of responsibility rests 
upon the Christian church in this respect." 

And to this letter Whittier added as a 
postscript : " Can you give me the address 
of Evelina Bray ? " Mr. Downey at once 

377 



OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES 

wrote that he was her husband, told of his 
service of the Master, and indirectly 
begged for assistance in his work of spread- 
ing the gospel. At this time he was an 
evangelist of the Baptist church, having 
some time since abandoned the mother 
faith. And, though he was not reduced 
to poverty, he accepted alms, as if poor, 
thus trying sorely the proud spirit of his 
wife. So it was not an unwonted request. 
Of course, the poet had no sympathy 
with the work of attack Mr. Downey was 
evidently engaged in. But he feared the 
girl friend of his youth might be in des- 
titute circumstances, and, for her sake, he 
made a liberal remittance. All this the 
miserable husband tried to keep from his 
wife, who he knew would at once return 
the money, but she came upon the fact of 
the remittance by finding Whittier's letter 
in her husband's pocket. 
378 



OLD NEW EJ^GLAISFD BOOFTKEES 

JSTaturally, she was very indignant, but 
her letter to Whittier returning the money 
was couched in the most delicate terms, 
and gave no hint of the misery of her life. 
Until the year of his death she was an 
occasional correspondent with the poet, one 
of his last letters, written at Hampton 
Falls in the summer of 1892, being ad- 
dressed to her. Their only meeting was at 
the Haverhill Academy reunion of 1885, 
fifty-eight years after the love episode of 
their school-days. 

When they met at Haverhill the poet 
took the love of his youth apart from the 
other schoolmates, and they then exchanged 
souvenirs, he receiving her miniature 
painted on ivory, by Porter, the same artist 
who painted the first likeness ever taken of 
Whittier. This latter miniature is now 
in the possession of Mr. Pickard. The 
portrait of Miss Bray, representing her 

379 



OLD KEW EKGLAl^TD KOOFTKEES 

in tlie full flush of her girlish beauty, 
wearing as a crown a wreath of roses, was 
returned to Mrs. Downey after the poet's 
death, by the niece of Whittier, into whose 
possession it came. 

Mrs. Downey spent her last days in the 
family of Judge Bradley, at West ISTew- 
bury, Massachusetts. After her death 
some valuable china of hers was sold at 
auction, and several pieces were secured by 
a neighbour, Mrs. Ladd. The Ladd family 
has since taken charge of the Whittier 
birthplace at East Haverhill, and by this 
chain of circumstances Evelina Bray's 
china now rests on the Whittier shelves, 
together with the genuine Whittier china, 
put in its old place by Mrs. Pickard. 

It was not because of destitution that 
Mrs. Downey made application to enter 
the Old Ladies' Home which Whittier en- 
dowed, but, because, cherishing until the 
380 



OLD i^Ew engla:n^d eoofteees 

day of her death her youthful fondness for 
the poet, she longed to live during the sun- 
set time of her life near his grave. In all 
probability her request would have been 
granted, had not she, too, been suddenly 
called to the land where there is neither 
marriage nor giving in marriage. 



THE EITD. 



381 



INDEX 



Adams, John, 96. 

Adams, Mrs. John, 111. 

Adams, Samuel, 119. 

Agassiz, Mrs., 290. 

Alford, Mrs. A. G., 297. 

Allston, 270. 

Antigua merchant, 6o 

Auburn, Mount, 328. 

Bana, Doctor, discovers Deborah Sampson's secret, 
181 ; sends letter to General Patterson, 188. 

Bancroft, 309. 

Barlow, Mrs., 301. 

Barr, George L., buys Royall House, 72. 

Bartley, Judge, 368. 

Bath, 13 ; death of Frankland at, 55. 

Beck, Doctor, 286. 

Belem, Frankland sails from, 53. 

Belknap, Jeremy, letter of, 265. 

Berkeley, Bishop, 11 ; student at Dublin University, 
12 ; fellow at Trinity College, 12 ; life as a tutor, 
12 ; reception in London, 28 ; marriage, 29 ; sails 
for Rhode Island, 30 ; arrives at Newport, 30 ; 
writes " Minute Philosopher," 32 ; bequeaths books 
to Yale College, 33 ; dies at Oxford, 34 ; portrait 
by Smibert, 35. 

Bermuda, proposed college at, 1.3. 

" Blithedale Romance," 300, 307. 

Bradley, Judge, 380. 

Bray, Evelina, born at Marblehead. 368. 

Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education 
organised, 296. 

" Brothers and Sisters " at Fay House, 292. 

Brown, Rev. Arthur, 248. 

Brownson, 301. 

Brunswick, triumphs of Riedesels at, 145. 

383 



INDEX 



Burgevine, Henry, 346. 

Burlingame, Anson, 355. 

Burgoyne, 56, 136. 

Burr, Aaron, 123. 

Burr, Thaddeus, 120. 

Bynner's story, Agnes Surriage, 45. 

Cadenus and Vanessa, poem, 24. 

Caldwell, Sir John, 305. 

Carlyle visited by Ripley, 299. 

Caroline, Queen (consort George Second), 29. 

Carter, Madam, 135. 

Cary Sisters, 367. 

Channing, Ellery, 334. 

Ctianning, Lucy, 282. 

Channing, Mary, 281. 

Channing, William Henry, 282, 314. 

Chambly, Baroness Riedesel at, 131. 

Charlestown City Hall, 270. 

Chichester, Eng., 56. 

Child, Professor, 286. 

Christ Church, Boston, 104. 

Church, Doctor, 122 ; fall of, 147 ; imprisoned, 150 ; 
education of, 151 ; delivers Old South Oration, 
152 ; tried at Watertown, 154 ; confined in Nor- 
wich Jail, 155; lost at sea (?), 156. 

Clark, Rev. Jonas. 111. 

Clark, Mrs. Jonas, 118. 

Clarke mansion purchased by Frankland, 54. 

Clough, Capt. Stet>hen, 162. 

Codman, Mrs. J. Amory, 261. 

Codman, Martha, 261. 

Columbian Centinel, 360. 

Coolidge, J. Templeton, 247. 

Corey, Giles, pressed to death, 238. 

Corey, Mrs. Martha, condemned as witch, 234. 

Corwin, Justice Jonathan. 226, 228. 

Cotton, Rev. John, 212, 221. 

Courier, Neio England, 30. 

Congress, Continental, 120. 

Copley, 270. 

Crowninshield, Hannah, 85. 

Curtis, George William, at Brook Farm, 303. 

Dana. Charles. 303. 

Dana, Dr. J. Freeman, 274. 

Dana, Edmund. 281. 

Dana, Sophia Willard, 281 : marries George Ripley, 
293 ; goes over to Rome, 299. 

Danvers, 228. 

Dawes at Lexington, 114. 

Deerfield, 190. 

Diaz. Abby Morton. 304. 

Dorothy Q. at Lexington, 112, 117 ; marries John 



384 



INDEX 



Hancock, 123: marries Captain Scott, 128; re- 
ceives Lafayette. 129. 

Downey, Evelina Bray, 367. 

Downey, Rev. William S., 375, 376. 

Drew, Mr. John, 56. 

Dnse, Eleanora, at Fay House, 290. 

Dunbarton, Stark House at, 74. 

Dwight, John, 303. 

Dwight, Marianne, 303. 

Dwight, President of Yale College, 269. 

Edmonston, Captain, 140. 

Elizabeth, loss of the Ossolis on, 322. 

Eliot, John, at Deerfield, 190. 

Ellsworth, Annie G., 275. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, at The Manse, 325 ; Haw- 
thorne and, 337. 

Emerson, William, at The Manse, 325. 

Endicott, Governor, 227. 

Erviug, George, at Medford, 63. 

Essex Institute, 67 ; Ward bequest to, 355. 

Eustis, Madam, 46. 

Everett, Edward, 281. 

Fairbanks, Jason, 252 ; trial of, 258 ; escape of, 259 ; 
hanging of, 259. 

Fairbanks, Jonathan, 260. 

Fairbanks, Rebecca, 260. 

Fairbanks, Chapter D. R., 260. 

" Fair Harvard " written In Fay House, 289. 

Fales, Elizabeth, 252 ; murder of, 257. 

Fay House, 279. 

Fay, Maria Denny, 283. 

Fay, P. P., 283. 

Felton, President, 286. 

Fielding, Henry, describes Lisbon, 50. 

Fire Island Beach, loss of the Ossolis off, 323. 

Fountain Inn, Marblehead. 58. 

Frankland, Charles Henry, 39 ; born in Bengal, 39 ; 
collector of Boston port. 39 : meets Agnes Surriage, 
43 ; adopts Agnes Surriage, 44 ; builds home at 
Hopkinton, 48 ; dies at Lisbon, 55. 

Franks, Miss. 100. 

Fuller, Margaret, at Brook Farm, 301 ; born in Cam- 
bridge, 312 ; joins Tribune staff, 3T6 ; at Concord, 
338; goes abroad, 317; marries Ossoli, 320; is 
lost at sea. 322. 

Fuller, Timothy, 312. 

Gage, General, at Boston, 107 ; in correspondence 
with Church. 149. 

Geer, Mr., present owner Royall House, 73. 

George First. 29. 

George Third entertains the Riedesels, 142 ; West's 
anecdote of, 271. 



385 



INDEX 



Gilman, Arthur, 287. 

Oilman, Dr. Samuel, 289. 

Goldsmith, 357. 

Gordon, " Chinese " 341. 

Greeley, Horace, 316. 

Greenough, Lily, 288. 

Greenough, Mrs., 288. 

Griswold, Sarah E., 276. 

Hamilton, Gail, 367. 

Hancock, John, at Lexington, 111 ; letters of, 120, 
122 ; marries Miss Quincy, 123 ; occupies home on 
Beacon Street, 125; dies, 128. 

Hancock, Lydia, at Lexington, 118. 

Hartford, Conn., Riedesels entertain Lafayette at, 
140. 

Haverhill Academy, 368. 

Haverhill Gazette, 369. 

Hawthorne writes of Sir Wm. Pepperell, 67 ; goes 
to Brook Farm, 295 ; writes of Margaret Fuller, 
310; at The Manse, 324. 

Higginson, Col. Thomas Wentworth, 281 ; writes of 
Margaret Fuller, 314. 

Hilliard at The Manse, 333. 

Hilton, Martha, 242 ; marries Governor Wentworth, 
248. 

Hobgoblin Hall, 72. 

Hollingsworth, 301. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 280. 

Honeyman's Hill (Newport, R. I.), 16. 

Hopkinton (Mass.), 48; home of Frankland burned, 
57 ; residence of Frankland, 55 ; Agnes Surriage 
at, 55. 

Howard, Lady, 142. 

Howe, Sir William, 99, 136, 138. 

Hutchinson, Ann, Mrs., 210 ; arrives in Boston, 214 ; 
holds meetings, 216 ; accused of heresy, 219 ; sen- 
tenced, 220; banished, 222; murdered, 224. 

Hutchinson, Governor, 222, 230. 

Inman's Farm, 326. 

Ireland, Nathaniel, 279. 

Isle of Shoals. 66. 

James, Professor William, 232. 

Johnson, Doctor, 20, 24. 

Kittery Point, 66. 

Ladd, Mrs., 380. 

Lafayette entertained by Starks, 80 ; on Washington 
and Lee, 90 : entertained by John Hancock, 128 ; 
received by Madame Scott, 129 ; dines with Bar- 
oness Riedesel, 140; visits George Third, 142. 

Lane, Professor, 286. 

Larcom, Lucy, 367. 

Lamed, *' Sam," 304. 



386 



INDEX 



Lauterbach, family vault of Riedesels at, 145. 

Lee, General, at Royall House, 71. 

Lee, General, in British army, 90 ; arrives in New 
York, 92 ; at Medford, 94 ; at Somerville, 95 ; dies 
in Virginia, 103. 

Lee, Sydney, 103. 

Lexington, affair at, 110. 

Lindencrone, De Hegermann, 288. 

Lisbon, Frankland at, 50 ; earthquake at, 51 ; Agnes 
Surriage's experience at, 56 ; Frankland consul- 
general at, 55. 

Longfellow, 286. 

Louisburg, 67. 

Lowell, James Russell, 281. 

Lowell, John, 257. 

Luther, Martin, Orphan Home, 297. 

Macdonald, George, 367. 

Marblehead, Maid of, 37 ; Town House, 39 ; Fountain 
Inn, 42 ; Whittier at, 371. 

Marie Antoinette, plot to rescue, 163. 

Marley Abbey (residence of "Vanessa"), 22. 

Marshall, Judge, 23. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, 53. 

Mather, Rev. Cotton, 233. 

McKean, Elizabeth, 282. 

McKean, Joseph, 280. 

McKinstrey, Sarah, marries Caleb Stark, 79 ; por- 
trait of, 84. 

McNeil, Gen. John, 83. 

Michelet, 231. 

Minot, Captain, 327. 

Morris, Robert, 82. 

Morse, Rev. Jedediah, 265. 

Morse, Samuel F. B., 83 ; birthplace of, 264 ; student 
at Yale, 269 ; studies painting in Europe, 270 ; 
returns to America. 272 ; paints Lafayette, 272 ; 
invents the telegraph, 273. 

Moulton, Mr. Charles, 288. 

Moulton, Suzanne, 289. 

Nason. Rev. Elias, 41. 

Newman, Robert, 116. 

Nichols, George C, buys Royall House, 72. 

Norris. Miss, 287. 

Nourse, Rebecca, 228. 

" Old Oaken Bucket," 356. 

Orvis, John, marries Marianne Dwight, 303. 

Ossoli, Angelo, Marchese d'. 320. 

Ossoli. Marchesa d' (See Margaret Fuller). 

Otis, Harrison Gray, 257. 

Oxford, death of Berkeley at, 34. 

Page. Capt. Caleb, 76. 

Pennsylvania Freeman, 372. 



387 



INDEX 



Pepperell, Sir William. 1st, 6G. 

Peppei-ell, !Sir William, 2d, at Medford, 63 ; gradu- 
ated, 68 ; marries Miss Royall, 68 ; denounced, 68 ; 
sails for England, 68 ; dies, 69. 

Pepperell, Lady, 85. 

Pepperell House built, 66. 

Percival, Lord, 13 ; letter from Walpole, 33. 

Phips, Governor, 233. 

Pickard, Elizabetli W., 366. 

Pickard, Samuel, 374. 

Pierce, Professor, 286. 

Porter House in Medford, 131. 

Prescott, Doctor, at Lexington, 114, 326. 

Price, Rev. Roger. 48. 

Pulling, Captain John, 106, 107, 110, 116. 

Quebec, Baroness Riedesel at, 131. 

Quincy, Miss, 120 ; marries John Hancock, 123. 

Raben-Levetzan, Suzanne, 289. 

Radcliffe College, 279. 

Radcliffe Maaazine, 287. 

Revere, Paul, 104, 110, 111 : writes of Church, 156. 

Revolution, Agnes Surriage in, 56. 

Riedesel, Baron. 130 ; entertains Lafayette, 140 ; vis- 
its George Third, 142 ; returns to Brunswick, 145 ; 
dies at Brunswick, 145. 

Riedesel, Baroness, 130 ; letters of, 131 ; lands in 
America, 131 ; reaches Cambridge, 134 ; dies at 
Berlin, 145 ; Cambridge street named for, 146. 

Ripley, Doctor, 331. 

Ripley, George, 281 ; marries Sophia Dana, 293 ; 
goes to Brook Farm, 295 ; visits Carlyle, 299. 

Rouville, Maj. Hertel de, 192. 

Royall House visited by Frankland, 45 ; built at 
Medford, 60. 

Royall, Isaac, the nabob, 61 

Royall, Col. Isaac, proscribed, 69 ; leaves land to 
Harvard, 70. 

Russell. Major, 360. 

Salem, Isaac Royall to sail from, 65. 

Saltonstall. 285. 

Sampson, Deborah (Gannett), 170: early life, 172; 
enlists in Continental Army, 174 ; writes her 
mother, 176; in battle of White Plains, 179; sex 
discovered by physician, 181 ; receives love letter, 
182 ; returns to her home, 188 ; marries, 188 ; 
conducts lecture tour, 189. 

Savage, 347. 

Scituate. 358. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 340. 

Schuyler, General, at Saratoga, 132 ; daughter of, 135. 

Sewall, Judge, 239. 

Shirley, governor Massachusetts, 41. 

Shirley House, 45. 



388 



INDEX 



Shurtleff, Robert (See Deborah Sampson). 

Sleepy Hollov»% 838, 339. 

Smibert paints Berkeley, 35 ; paints Sir Wm. Pep- 
perell, 1st, 67. 

Smith, Mary, 368 ; marries S. F. Smith, 369. 

Sophia, Princess, and Madame Riedesel, 144. 

Sophocles, Evangelinus Apostolides, 287. 

Sparhawk, Colonel, 66. 

Stark, General, at Royall House, 71. 

Stark, Archibald, 75. 

Stark, Caleb, born at Dunbarton, 77 ; marries Miss 
McKinstrey, 79 ; entertaiQS Lafayette, 80. 

Stark, Charlotte, 82. 

Stark, Harriett, 82. 

Stark, Charles F. Morris, 82. 

Stark Burying-ground, 88. 

Stella, journal of, 17 ; marriage to Swift, 20. 

Story, Capt. William, 368. 

Story, Judge, 286. 

Story, Mary, 285. 

Story, William, 285. 

Sully steamship, 273. 

Surriage, Agnes, 37. 

Swan, Col. James, 159 ; member Sons of Liberty, 
160 ; at Bunker Hill, 160 ; secretary Mass. Board 
of War. 161 ; makes fortune. 161 ; loses fortune, 
161 ; secures government contracts, 162 ; returns 
to America, 164 ; arrested at Paris, 165 ; confined 
in St. Pelagic, 166; dies, 3 68. 

Swift. Dean, friend to Berkeley, 16 ; at lodfring in 
Bury Street, 17 ; letter to Vanessa, 21 ; letter to 
Lord Carteret, 27. 

Swift. Lindsay. 301. 

Tai-Ping Rebellion. 346. 

Thayer. Abijah W.. 369. 

Thaxter, Celia, 285. 

Thaxter, Levi, 285. 

Thorean and Hawthorne. 335 ; grave of, 339. 

Three Rivers, Baroness Riedesel at, 131. 

Tidd. Jacob, buys Rovall House, 72. 

Tituba, the Indian slave. 229. 

Titus. Mrs. Nelson V., 261. 

Tremont House. 305. 

Ursuline Convent, 284. 

Vane. Sir Harry. 215. 

Vanessa (Cadenus and Vanessa), 19; goes to Ire- 
land, 20 ; letter to Swift. 21 ; letter to Stella, 22 ; 
legacy to Berkeley, 23 : death of. 25. 

Vanhomrigh, Esther (See Vanessa), 17. 

Vassall House. 148 : bpcomes hospital, 149 ; Doctor 
Church there confined, 150. 

Vaudreuil, Governor, 200. 



389 



INDEX 



Walker, Lucretia P., 272. 

\\ alpole, Sir Robert, 28 ; writes to Lord Percival, 33. 

Ward, Elizabeth C, founds Chinese library, 355. 

Ward, Frederick Townsend, born at Salem, 342 ; 
enters French army, 343 ; enlists in Nicaraguan 
expedition, 344 ; arrives at Shanghai, 344 ; de- 
feats Tai-Pings, 347 ; is made a mandarin, 349 ; 
organises Ever-Victorious Army, 350 ; marries 
Changmei, 350 ; burit'd at Ning Po, 352 ; is made 
a god, 352. 

Warren, Doctor, and Church, 157. 

Warren, Mrs. Mercy, 100. 

Washington, George, letter of, 88. 

Wayside Inn, 49, 241. 

Wentworth, Governor, marriage of, 248. 

Wentworth, Michael, 249. 

West, Benjamin, 270. 

West Indies, proposed seminary at, 14. 

Whitehall (built at Newport, R. I.), 11; made over 
to Yale College, 33. 

White, Maria, 285, 286. 

Whitman, Mrs. Sarah, 290. 

Whittier at Marblehead, 371 : at Philadelphia, 372 ; 
" A Sea Dream," written by, 374 ; at Haverhill 
Seminary reunion, 379 ; endows Amesbury Home, 
366. 

Williams, Gov. Charles K., 208. 

Williams, Rev. Eleazer (Dauphin?), 207. 

Williams, Eunice, captured, 194 ; is converted by 
Jesuits, 205 ; marries a savage, 205 ; revisits 
Deerfield. 205. 

Williams, Rev. John, 193 ; captured, 194 ; redeemed, 
208. 

Williams, Roger, 226. 

Williams, Rev. Stephen, 198 ; captured by Indians, 
194 : redeemed, 203 ; settles at Longmeadow, 204. 

Winthrop, John, 217. 

Wiscasset, Me., plan to entertain Marie Antoinette 
at. 163. 

Woodworth, Samuel, born at Scituate, 359 ; writes 
" Old Oaken Bucket," 362 ; dies, 364. 

Yale College, bequest from Berkeley, 33; S. F. B. 
Morse fit. 269. 

Zenobia, 301. 



390 



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